PAKISTAN, 1979. In the Punjabi village of Charkhi, just across the border from India, the ghosts of partition come back to haunt Ayesha, a widow raising her teenage son Saleem alone.

The boy wanders without direction until two Islamic militants from Lahore come to give it to him and to all the other directionless young men of the village. And what's amazing about this film is that it's the first one I've ever seen from Pakistan, but I know these characters and so does everyone else.

Saleem is everywhere, as are the militants from Lahore. Military recruiters, Christian missionaries, mujahedeen, skinheads and gangs are all looking for the dispossessed whom they offer a little bit of power in exchange for obedience. And the results have a shocking universality whether enacted by members of the Taliban or US soldiers at Abu Ghraib Prison.

The film climaxes when Indian Sikhs are allowed to return to their sacred sites in Pakistani Punjab for the first time since partition. The final message, completely unspoken yet profoundly convincing in both physical and metaphysical ways, is basically the same conclusion that every great religion and philosophy comes to. All human beings are our own brothers and sisters, especially our enemies. And if there's a film to persuade people of this rather than putting them off by preaching righteousness or despair, this is it.





Screaming Men (2003)
Mika Ronkainen | Finland/Denmark | 76 min | Music: Olli Tuomainen, Petri Sirviö.

SCREAMING MEN opens with an enormous icebreaker plowing through the frozen Arctic. Dozens of men all dressed uniformly in suits disembark and line up in neat rows. The choirmaster gives them the signal, and holler. In unison and three part harmony. Like a choir. Except without the singing.

This documentary follows the choir as they tour the world screaming national anthems, textbooks and historical documents. They are particularly well received in Japan but not in France where they are politely asked to refrain from screaming La Marseillaise.

Choir director Petri Sirviö sarcastically suggests that in place of La Marseillaise, they sing Deutschland Über Alles, then directs the men to sing La Marseillaise anyway. There are of course a million ways this film could have been made, but director Mika Ronkainen has decided to keep it mostly observational (the footage of choir auditions are absolute gold), and make it more of a portrait of choirmaster Sirviö.

Sirviö is the one character who does not scream in the choir, though he more than makes up for it in addressing his men and the journalists constantly pestering him about the nature of the primal male scream and what it means. Which is not really what the film is about.

For all the Iron John wildman pop psychology projected onto the choir, this art and this film are about strictness and order. The men scream, but only in unison and only on Sirviö's command and the film is really one about order and how it legitimizes an activity that's usually out of bounds.

My only disappointment is that the Screaming Men did not come to New Zealand to learn a haka and have a faceoff with kapahaka champions or the All Blacks.





Kaikohe Demolition (2004)
Florian Habicht | Aotearoa/New Zealand | 52 min | Featuring: Ben Haretuku, John Zielinski, Carmen Zielinski, Uncle Bimm.

KAIKOHE DEMOLITION focuses on the stories of three middle-aged demolition derby drivers in an impoverished Northland community with a large Mäori population, best known for its 1991 Christmas parade where the children attacked Santa. The charm of the film is all in its leads: Uncle Bimm, Ben Haretuku and John Zielinski, who are some of the best talent in any of this year's films. The best screenwriter couldn't script the dialogue they improvise.

Example: Ben Haretuku's wife is terrified he will be hurt in the demolition derby and refuses to even come watch. But he reckons, "If I could get her to come in the car with me just once – well it would do wonders for our sex life". Kaikohe is a rough town where people live rough lives. They get into a muddy paddock trying to smash each other's cars FOR FUN (the only rule is no smashing the driver's side door). A wicked sense of humour is an essential coping mechanism.

The third world reality of Kaikohe is somewhat less of a laugh in a country that once prided itself on its equality. Not far beneath the laughs rides the harsh subtext that smashing up cars on the weekend is the only thing many people have to look forward to, but social issues are not something the film really engages.

Kaikohe is well-shot if not especially complex or well-crafted, but it's the most entertaining comedy of everything I've seen at the festival this year.





In My Father's Den (2004)
Brad McGann | New Zealand/UK | 126 min | Featuring: Matthew Macfadyen, Miranda Otto, Colin Moy, Jimmy Keen, Vicky Haughton, Vanessa Riddell, Jodie Rimmer, Emily Barclay.

A PRODIGAL son returns to his Otago hometown after the death of his father. Paul's been a London-based war photographer for years and this is his first visit home since his mother committed suicide when he was sixteen.

There's unfinished business with his brother, as with his ex-girlfriend, who now has a teenaged daughter Celia born roughly nine months after Paul left town for good. Paul sees himself in Celia, a creative, intelligent misfit imprisoned in a town with no future for her. When Celia turns up missing, tongues, fingers and firearms start to wag.

Based on the 1972 Maurice Gee novel, In My Father's Den updates the story to the present, one I expect will be relevant to the future for some time to come now. The mercilessly economical dialogue leaves out just the right amount to keep you begging for more. Biblical undertones and the fantastic sexual tension that the subtext of incest brings keep the story as tight as the script, all without feeling like they're trying.

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