Contemporary New Zealand Cinema in relation to New Zealand Documentary
New Zealand cinema is a relatively recent development, having a short history unlike most film movements. Very few feature films were created before 1970, and Hollywood “maintained significant control of [their] profitable film distribution sector” (Larroa & Ferrer-Roca, 2017). This was largely due to the population’s size being too small to establish a successful film industry, however after the New Zealand Film Commission was established in 1977, filmmakers have conceived a new movement. A number of the over 300 feature films produced after 1977 subvert the international perception of New Zealand as a country in many ways including landscape and character themes and actions.
With its own film movement, “New Zealand has been brave enough to celebrate its own unique culture” (Conrich, 2008:71), meaning that filmmakers could present urban New Zealand, places the locals would connect with, instead of the ethereal, diverse landscapes represented in the documentaries that the government supported before the New Zealand Film Commission. Once Were Warriors (Lee Tamahori, 1994) juxtaposes this “pastoral paradise” (Conrich, 2005:114) sentiment with its opening scene, where a beautiful landscape is shown to just be an advertisement on a billboard. I found this to be an interesting development as it is almost like New Zealand filmmakers are fighting against the international perception of the country. Conrich states that, “…the land appears formidable, uncontrollable, and “alive” (Conrich, 2005:119). Contrast this with Kotuku’s opening scene (John Feeney, 1954), where New Zealand is advertised as quiet and peaceful.
This notion of a New Zealand ‘utopia’ is also challenged by thematic decisions in New Zealand cinema; most notably masculinity and violence. However, the theme of masculinity was anchored in previous documentaries; in Country Lads (Stanhope Andrews, 1941), the soldier’s efforts were remarked as, “…the swinging stride of free men, who have put on their working clothes and got into step for the biggest job ever tackled”. This does come in contrast with contemporary New Zealand cinema, in which masculinity is represented as fragile; Jake in Once Were Warriors is quick to violence, seen early on where he feels he needs to beat up a man to help a ‘damsel in distress’. Babington states that Heart of the Stag (Michael Firth, 1984) and Trespasses (Peter Sharp, 1984) “...both organise their narratives around a masculinity split into rival male figures – one a literal patriarch, the other younger, battling for an abused young female” (Babington, 2007:169).
The rise of masculinity due to female abuse is present in Once Were Warriors, notably in this scene where Jake beats his defenceless wife. This is the binary opposite to Country Lads where the narrator expresses that the men went to war “for the women and children”. New Zealand has some of the worst family violence statistics in the world, so I believe that filmmakers wanted to represent this to expose New Zealand’s truths that the government-supported documentaries tried to hide in a way to promote the country. Much like the Dogme 95 movement, contemporary New Zealand cinema tackles the sensitive issues that Hollywood tries to avoid head-on. New Zealand is an interesting cinema to me as, due to the small population, I feel filmmakers wanted to represent their country, but in a way contrapuntal to the documentaries the country used to fund. This created an intriguing movement in terms of theme.
Bibliography:
Babington, Bruce (2007) A History of the New Zealand Fiction Feature Film. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press
Conrich, Ian and Murray, Stuart (2008) Contemporary New Zealand Cinema: From New Wave to Blockbuster. New York, NY: I.B.Tauris
Conrich, Ian (2005) ‘Kiwi Gothic: New Zealand’s Cinema of a Perilous Paradise’ In: Schneider, Steven and Williams, Tony. (ed.) Horror International: World Horror Cinema. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press. pp. 114-127
Larroa, Argelia Muñoz and Ferrer-Roca, Natàlia (2017) ‘Film Distribution in New Zealand: Industrial Organization, Power Relations and Market Failure’ In: Media Industries 4.2 (2017). Wellington, NZ: Victoria University of Wellington. pp. 2-21