Thomas Giblin rounds up the best local films you can treat yourself to at home this Matariki.
If you haven’t made plans for this long Matariki weekend, why not expand your knowledge of the cinema of Aotearoa? Gather your friends and whānau, indulge in some kai and watch a film you might not have heard of before, or one that’s always been on your list and you just haven’t got around to. You won’t find any Taika Waititi or Jane Campion here, but there’s definitely a film for everyone. From a nail-biting action thriller to a charming cross-cultural rom-com and beyond, enjoy the extra day off and relish these local cinematic gems.
Sleeping Dogs (TVNZ+)
Credited with launching Sir Sam Neill’s career and the “New Zealand New Wave”, Sleeping Dogs is a timeless classic. Released in 1977 and set in a near future dystopia, Aotearoa has plunged into chaos. A totalitarian government has instituted martial law, and American troops are sent in to help squash the violent rebellion. But Smith (Neill), whose wife has just run off with his best friend, retreats to the idyllic wilderness of an island on the Coromandel Peninsula. He lives peacefully with his dog Snuffles, until he is unwittingly drawn into the struggle between the revolutionaries and government forces.
Despite its low budget, director Roger Donaldson’s vision for Sleeping Dogs is uncompromising and daring. Aotearoa’s landscape, a symbol of abundant freedom, is a contrast to the film’s evocation of the Nazis’ rise to power in 1930s Germany. While explosive action scenes and hair-raising stunts are aplenty, Sleeping Dogs’ ideological undercurrent is pinned on the mercurial central performance from Neill. The shattering of his moral makeup as an “everyman” make the film an enthralling watch all these years later.
Utu Redux (TVNZ+)
Utu Redux is the reconstructed and enhanced version of Utu, director Geoff Murphy’s epic “Pūhā western”. Fresh off the commercial success of Goodbye Pork Pie, Utu, upon its release in 1983, was Aotearoa’s most successful film to date. Inspired by Te Kooti’s war against colonising European settlers, Te Wheke (Anzac Wallace), a Māori warrior in 1870s Aotearoa, seeks utu (revenge). Te Wheke, who witnesses the massacre of a Māori village, takes up arms and declares, “I must kill the white man to avenge what he has done.”
Described by Quentin Tarantino as “hands down the best New Zealand movie of all time”, Utu is a sprawling fable of action and adventure unique to these shores. A homage to Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns, Murphy directs with ferocity, oscillating between hyperbolic violence, rugged landscapes and gallows humour. On Te Wheke’s quest for Utu, he comes up against a farmer named Williamson, played by the extraordinary Bruno Lawrence, one of Aotereoa’s most beloved actors. He brandishes a homemade four-barreled shotgun – a symbol of the film’s pulpy reckoning with the spectre of colonisation.
Patu! (NZ On Screen, MĀORI+)
In Patu!, Merata Mita, the godmother of Indigenous cinema, chronicles the widespread protests across Aotearoa in 1981 against the Springboks tour. A watershed moment in the history of Aotearoa, more than 150,000 people took part in anti-apartheid protests, as the tour was seen as an endorsement of South Africa’s separatist government. Mita and her team of camera operators were on the frontlines to capture it all.
Mita blends cinéma vérité-style footage with talking heads and still photographs into a vital historical document that is a triumph of activist filmmaking. In response to accusations that the Patu! is biased, she stated: “My perspective encourages people to look at themselves and examine the ground they stand on.” The film, now more than ever, is essential viewing.
Vigil (NZ Film On Demand)
Hailed as “a true visionary” by legendary film critic Roger Ebert, director Vincent Ward’s debut feature Vigil was the first Aotearoa-made film to screen in competition at Cannes. Ward paints an otherworldly lo-fi vision of an isolated farm deep in rural Aotearoa. The valley keeps outsiders at bay until Toss’s (Penelope Stewart ) father dies, and Ethan (Frank Whitten), a hunter, comes to his wake. The young girl sees this newcomer as an invader – a threat to her mud-caked dream world whom she must expel before it is too late.
Vigil is a hypnotic, expressionistic coming-of-age film, with little to no dialogue. Ward evokes the unnerving silence found in the rolling green vistas of Aoteroa to explore Toss’s psyche as she grieves and toils with the presence of Ethan. These breathtakingly captured landscapes to Toss are deeply spiritual and private. A film of staggering poetic beauty.
Crush (NZ Film On Demand)
Marcia Gay Harden, who would go on to win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, astounds as a reckless femme fatale in Crush, the debut feature from Alison Maclean. The film, a wickedly humorous story of infatuation and manipulation, opens with Lane (Harden) involved in a car crash en route to Rotorua. She escapes unscathed, but friend and literary critic Christina (Donogh Rees) does not. Set against steaming mud pools, Crush and its emotional core mirror the city’s geothermal activity, which bubbles away just below the surface. When the film hisses and fizzles through the splintering topsoil, it is a razor-sharp exploration of the interplay between power and identity.
Desperate Remedies (NZ Film On Demand)
A response to Jane Campion’s The Piano, a period drama set in 19th-century Aotearoa and released the same year, Desperate Remedies is a stylish high-camp melodrama. The film is an extravagant confetti cannon – a conscious rebuttal by directors Stewart Main and Peter Wells to contrast the gritty realism that dominated the cinema of Aotearoa in the 80s and early 90s.
Set in “Hope, New Britannia”, a town on the edge of Britain’s empire, Dorothea Brooke (Jennifer Ward-Lealand) must save her sister from the clutches of evil. Opium, sex and her former lover, the devilishly handsome Fraser (Cliff Curtis). Like a Baz Luhrmann film, Desperate Remedies has flashy costumes, sumptuous production design, dazzling lighting and outlandish performances. The film is everything you wouldn’t want The Piano to be, and that’s a fabulous thing.
Jack Be Nimble (NZ Film On Demand)
New York Times critic Stephen Holden praised Jack Be Nimble for achieving a “feverish intensity that recalls scenes from Hitchcock and De Palma,” and it’s clear why. The alluring gothic horror film with a cult following stars Alexis Arquette as Jack and Sarah Kennedy as Dora, who were abandoned as babies.
Adopted into separate families, Dora goes into a loving home, but Jack’s young life has been spent with a sadistic family. He’s developed telepathic powers and senses that his beloved sister is in danger. After years apart, they reunite but are pursued by Jack’s four evil step-sisters.
Director Garth Maxwell’s direction is wonderfully off-kilter, taking inspiration from the twisted insanity of 80s Italian horror and the folklore of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale. He moulds Jack Be Nimble into a one-of-a-kind film that is equally horrifying and lush. The film’s last 10 minutes are brilliantly bonkers, so avoid spoilers, and you’re in for a nightmare-like rollercoaster ride.
My Wedding and Other Secrets (TVNZ+)
Based on director Roseanne Liang’s real-life cross-cultural romance, My Wedding and Other Secrets is a charming Tāmaki Makaurau set twist on Romeo and Juliet. The film, a launching pad for Liang’s ascendent rise to Hollywood, follows Emily Chu (Michelle Ang) who falls head over heels for James Harrison (Matt Whelan). The rom-com will leave you needing a tissue to dab the tears away as Chu’s love for the nerdy Harrison and her passion for filmmaking is at odds with the expectations of her traditional Chinese parents. Will love conquer all? Chu, with her can-do attitude, puts this idea into practice.
Kāinga (RNZ)
Over five decades, the house at 11 Rua Road is witness to eight unique stories of Asians attempting to make Aotearoa their Kāinga. From the production team behind Waru and Vai, the anthology film takes its title from the Māori word for home. Eight Pan-Asian female filmmakers across eight diverse chapters detail the challenges of the immigrant experience in Aotearoa. Each powerful story is depicted as a one-shot, allowing the film to flow seamlessly from one to another, grounded in the brick-and-mortar of 11 Rua Road. Kāinga is a testament to the indomitable human spirit, and its filmmakers are the future.