#New Zealand Cinema

[inthedarktrees]

Kate Winslet & Melanie Lynskey

Heavenly Creatures (1994) dir. Peter Jackson

[ladamarossa]

Mr. Wrong (1984)

[celluloidrainbow]

GEORGIE GIRL (2001) dir. Annie Goldson & Peter Wells Georgina Beyer, a Maori actress turned public official, stuns the world in 1999 by becoming the first trans person to hold national office. Growing up on a small Tarankai farm, she later became a small-time celebrity on the cabaret circuit in Auckland. With charisma, humor and charm, Beyer unapologetically recounts her fascinating life story, shares how she overcame adversity and discloses the reasons she decided to run for office in a mostly all white, conservative electorate. (link in title)

[gregor-samsung]

Hunt for the Wilderpeople (Taika Waititi, 2016)

[sloshed-cinema]

The Piano (1993)

The gothic romance, it would appear, has an uncanny valley. Shipped off by her family from rainy Scotland to muddy and rainy New Zealand, Ada McGrath is forced into the arms of her arranged husband Alisdair Stewart. Finding herself in a strange land with her young daughter Flora, Ada is forced to deal with harsh terrain and unfamiliar people, all while needing to communicate through either her daughter’s fiery translation of her sign language, written notes, or rigid and firm body language. She cannot speak, expressing herself instead through her piano playing, and she is stuck between two men. Alisdair is controlling and distant, and local handyman George Baines is coarse and blunt. Both men desire her, and she wants none of them. In its unfolding, The Piano manages to fall directly into the gulf between romance which is transgressive and charged, and that which is intended to be such but just comes across as creepy. Alisdair expects that his chosen spouse perform her duties because that’s her role and generally skulks around; not much needs to be said of him for that part. He is the patriarch incarnate. But George, in his game of exchanging sexual favors for the 88 keys of the piano that he’s holding hostage in a bid to garner her favor, is no better. The relationship blossoming between them seems to be prodded along because the film desires it to go in a direction rather than it happening in an organic sense, coercive that it is. That’s not to say it’s not without wit: writer-director Jane Campion finds indulgence within this, having George finger a hole in Ada’s stocking in an obvious innuendo, and later matching the handyman going down on the landowner’s wife to said landowner peeping in while having his hand eaten out by the family dog. Cue the train entering the tunnel. But the relationship between George and Ada isn’t love borne out of shared suffering, it’s some variation on Stockholm Syndrome. Ada’s position is unenviable, and the film leans into that, but it’s hard to buy that in the grander scheme of things. It just comes off as another case when I have to walk away scratching my head and wondering why movies seem to find these dynamics so sexually interesting. This has all of the trappings of a Wuthering Heights type situation but in its execution cannot balance transgression with coercion.

But perhaps this viewing was colored by my aversion to films that feel the need to hammer in the messaging or symbolism of their narrative. This is more Nathaniel Hawthorne than Haruki Murakami. Early on, we establish that the piano is Ada’s voice in the world. Indeed, her playing is anachronistic in its lyricism and fluidity, commingling freely with composer Michael Nyman’s lyrical and flowing score. People notice and comment on this. But needing to draw attention to something which is already clear is the least of the worries of the film. Throughout, conscious parallels are drawn in the most achingly obvious manner: the church pageant features a pantomime of the Bluebeard tale, a jealous man beheading his wives with an axe. Cue Alisdair with an axe. Ada removes a key from her precious piano, intended as a gift and love-affirmation to George, but it is intercepted by the vengeful Alisdair. By chopping off Ada’s index finger, he deprives her of her pre-stated voice. All of this would be fine, but for the fact that a play within a film literally tells you an idea you’re supposed to pay attention to, and the finger-severing is commented on obliquely when a Māori worker notes that the separated key no longer has a voice. All of this would be poetic but for how sweatily intentional is the presentation of it all. When the parallels are clear by implication, it starts to feel insulting when they get pointed to time and again by characters within the film. To that end, the conclusion of the film feels a little mixed: Ada finds a new life with George, and yet comments on her soul through her piano still binding her to its watery grave. Well, which is it gonna be, Jane? Just drown your character and put this to its watery grave, as you said you wanted to do so later.

The handling of the Māori was… not great. They’re present within the world of the film, as would make sense for the time period of the story. But at no point does the film look their way and think about the effects of colonialism inflicted on these people. Instead, they are largely presented as simpletons who cannot understand theatre effects but are useful when it comes to rowing canoes or carrying cargo.

All said, the ratio of loss from piano keys to human fingers isn’t exactly equivalent. SUCK IT, METAPHOR!!!

THE RULES

SIP

Someone uses a synonym for 'silent'.

Ada starts to play piano.

Close-up of piano hammers.

BIG DRINK

Flora tells a lie.

A number of keys is named in the piano ownership bargain.

Obscene amounts of mud.

[oceanusborealis]

Uproar - Movie Review

TL;DR – An emotional punch to the face as it explores the power of finding your identity. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4.5 out of 5. Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.Disclosure – I paid to see this film Uproar Review – At the time of writing, we are in the middle of the Brisbane International Film Festival or, more affectionately, BIFF. So many films were on offer that you needed to sort…

[honeygleam]

land of the boy in boy (2010) dir. taika waititi

[mariocki]

The Quiet Earth (1985)

"We might not have been responsible. God may have just blinked."

"God blinked and the whole world disappeared. A world of noisy, brawling, wonderful human beings."

[ordosmarkzero]

Boy (2010)

[latenightcinephile]

Film #908: 'Sleeping Dogs', dir. Roger Donaldson, 1977.

The first New Zealand film to get major distribution in the United States, Sleeping Dogs is a bit of a strange case. On the face of it, the film resembles many other projects being made here in the 1970s and 1980s - low-budget pieces made with the financial support of other national media (in this case, New Zealand's television network) and a strong vibe of 'Just ask for what you want and see who says yes'. This is a film about the New Zealand government becoming a fascist regime, which has its fascists turn up in helicopters borrowed from the country's Air Force. Despite the unlikable characters and a sense of ambivalence that runs through it, the film commits to its tone and has a few thrills. This is just as well, considering the plot is made of tissue paper, spit and hope. I haven't read the novel it's based on (written by C. K. Stead, a lion of New Zealand literature) but I can't imagine it's much of an improvement. This is not a story about plausibility.

Sam Neill plays Smithy who, following an acrimonious split with his wife, heads to a small island for a chance to regroup. This isolation leaves him unaware that the government has moved to full-on authoritarianism following a series of labour disputes. Things rapidly descend into chaos - a bomb is detonated in the town and a local is later killed - and Smithy is arrested under the accusation of being an anti-government revolutionary. His claims to innocence are ignored, as apparently the island he was on was full of unexploded mines and military surplus. Smithy is able to escape his captors but finds himself shuttled around between various revolutionary safehouses and sympathisers. While working in a rural motel, he is approached by Bullen (Ian Mune, one of the film's writers), the man Smithy's wife was having an affair with. Bullen confesses that he and Smithy's wife have joined the resistance, and he pressures Smithy into assisting with an attack against a group of US troops who have been called in to support the government. Now on the run, Smithy and Bullen are forced into an uneasy alliance against Jesperson, the leader of the special forces who also organised the false flag operation that allowed the government to increase its powers in the first place.

Back in 1977, this plot would have resonated in a number of ways with its viewers. Some of New Zealand's most famous literature, such as John Mulgan's Man Alone and the poetry of James K. Baxter, rely on the country's history of rebellion and labour disputes. In a very real sense, we are a nation of protest, and simultaneously the country's geographic isolation has meant trying to balance our ideals with the concessions required for trade. In the 1970s, oil shortages were a real concern, and it perhaps wouldn't have been too much of a stretch to imagine a combination of fuel insecurity and class discontent spilling over into an authoritarian government. Additionally, the Vietnam war was still fresh in the populace's minds and so it seemed plausible that the United States might be called in to quash another insurrection. The problem, however, is that the government in Sleeping Dogs doesn't seem to be accruing this power for any particular reason. I'm sure it's intended as a Kafkaesque world where answers are impossible to come by - Smithy's days-long imprisonment in a dark basement certainly conveys that - but it feels like the Prime Minister ought to have some reason to consolidate his power. Even if Smithy isn't aware of the wider political landscape, it's information that would help a viewer buy into the film's fiction.

The contours of the central conflict are also hazily-drawn. Resistance members are very easy to find, it seems - every minor character we're introduced to is a revolutionary or a sympathiser, and they casually tell Smithy exactly where to find his next contact. Meanwhile, the government teams are astonishingly bad at finding Smithy, whose job at the motel draws no suspicion with anyone he encounters even though his face has been on news bulletins for weeks. There's a certain level of blindness you can expect your villains to have before it starts to impact the believability of the story overall, and Sleeping Dogs blows right past this. Towards the end of the film, following the bombing of a guerrilla encampment, Smithy and Bullen hike across the mountains towards what they hope is a friendly farm. Given the other stretched coincidences we've seen so far, this by itself doesn't seem implausible. But on a narrative level, with most of the other revolutionaries dead and helicopters combing the bush for the survivors, it doesn't seem like reaching a safehouse would actually improve things at all. We're clearly heading for an ending where either Smithy and Bullen die, or one where the entire government fails for no reason, and it feels like only one of those endings can be reached from where the film is at that point. The film feels like it's treading water before an inevitable ending, and the extra time spent isn't valuable overall.

So, the narrative of the film doesn't bear much scrutiny afterwards. Why is Sleeping Dogs good? Let's leave aside the obvious reasons why it's on the list: landmark in New Zealand cinema; Sam Neill's breakthrough role. These aren't small things, and in fact Neill's charisma really helps bring the film beyond its ambivalent and cynical characters. The scenery is beautiful, and represents a rural New Zealand that doesn't exist in quite the same way after forty years: a lot of wide streets with quarter-acre sections and minimarts, where now most of the towns in the Coromandel are full of million-dollar apartments. One of the things that I found particularly compelling about the film is that it succeeds in merging a genre associated with American filmmaking, and a set of visual signifiers heavily associated with rural New Zealand. A lot of films made here in the 1970s and 1980s did this, but Sleeping Dogs arguably started the trend, or at least was the most successful example of it. This is a thriller where the major action scene takes place in a cinderblock motel, where one of the revolutionary contacts runs a fish and chip shop, and where the old guy who's always fishing on the wharf and never has much to say can take a bullet to the head under suspicious circumstances. In other words, Sleeping Dogs is recognisable to New Zealand viewers in the same way that Children of Men might be recognisable to Britons: our world, flexed slightly towards fascism.

I think the comparison to Cuaron's film is instructive, especially now. One of the things that sometimes accompanies five-minutes-into-the-future dystopia, which I perceive as a weakness in the genre, is the assumption that when a regime shifts to fascism, everything around it changes to match. A repressive government is more believable and scary, especially now, when we see it juxtaposed with the world that we know, with all its inertia and resistance to sweeping social change. Sleeping Dogs and Children of Men are films in which the world is tonally much the same as the one in which the film was released. Both focus on an everyman hero getting wrapped up in revolutionary politics against his will. Both have been somewhat predictive, too: in Europe's steady political shift rightwards, and in a growing mistrust of authority here in New Zealand. New Zealand is renowned for what we call the 'she'll be right' attitude - a blithe optimism in the face of powerful forces. Sleeping Dogs shares this attitude in many places. We're encouraged to believe that, even though the resistance doesn't seem to be making material gains, its cause is still worth fighting for, and that it is the fight itself that is noble. Weirdly, and chillingly, the end of the film reveals this attitude to be insufficient. At the end of Children of Men, Theo dies, but still succeeds in his mission: the cause goes on. At the end of Sleeping Dogs, it feels like this might genuinely be the end - Smithy, fed up with running, goads the military into shooting him, and the credits roll. What I can't figure out is whether Donaldson intends this failure to mean anything. Is this an indictment of rebellion? A fatalistic view that authoritarianism will always succeed? Or is this a rebuke of Smithy in particular? If Smithy had bought wholeheartedly into the rebellion, would the story have been any different? If he had listened to the radio more while he was on the island? If he hadn't gotten involved in the revolutionary plot at all?

I am wondering, as I write this, at what point we started expecting pop culture to be our blueprint for getting out of real-world messes. At some point, we stopped viewing a film like this as just an escapist 'what if' story, and started wanting it to be edifying in some way. Because Sleeping Dogs is so relatable, because it's a world I live in and recognise, I want it to have something meaningful to say. At its worst, this expectation makes us like Smithy, staying out of the fight for as long as possible until we can't ignore it any more. By that point, it's too late to help, and we just follow the path to the foregone conclusion.

Two years after the film was released, the New Zealand government introduced mandatory carless days to try and reduce reliance on fuel imports. The measure didn't achieve the government's aims. Four years after the film was released, New Zealanders of all stripes were involved in violent clashes with police while protesting the South African apartheid regime. Some of the scenes from those protests eerily resembled scenes from Sleeping Dogs.

I don't expect this film will resonate as much outside of this particular cultural context, but it's still an entertaining twist on the action film. Without an idea of what attitude the film holds, or whether it believes in the power of resistance or not, Sleeping Dogs only becomes more tantalising and ambiguous.

[inthedarktrees]

Kate Winslet & Melanie Lynskey

Heavenly Creatures (1994) dir. Peter Jackson

[praveendaskumar]

Hi sir 😎👎👎

The Worship lord Completed today 🥰

[celluloidrainbow]

INTERSEXION (2012) dir. Grant Lahood Activists Mani Mitchell and Grant Lahood set out to "de-mystify" intersex, looking beyond the shame and secrecy that defines many intersex births by visiting intersex people in America, Ireland, Germany, South Africa and Australia and exploring how they navigate their way through childhood, adolescence, relationships and adulthood, when they don’t fit the binary model of a solely male and female world. Those forced to go through early surgical interventions contrast their experiences with those who grew up without. (link in title)

[gregor-samsung]

Hunt for the Wilderpeople (Taika Waititi, 2016)

[sine-cinematography]

THE RETURN OF THE KING  (2003) - Wide shots

DIRECTOR: Peter Jackson CINEMATOGRAPHER: Andrew Lesnie

[oceanusborealis]

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Alloyed and Season 1 – TV Review

TL;DR – I was captured by the joyful sincerity that permeated the whole season.          ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4.5 out of 5. Disclosure – I paid for the Amazon Prime service that viewed this episode. The Rings of Power Review – When I started watching The Rings of Power, I went into it with a moment of trepidation. The Lord of the Rings holds a special place in my heart because they were the first…