JACOB POWELL moves onto digital shorts as part of this year’s “Homegrown: Works on Video” programme.

TNZIFF 2007’s Homegrown: Works on Video programme presents somewhat of a mixed bag, replete with shorts that take you from contemplative musing to shock and anger, heart-warming smiles to several minutes of cringefest. Themes and genres are also widespread, covering comedy, horror-western, shockumentary, experimental and stylised drama-cum-mystery. Overall, the standard was reasonably high – complementing the trend in the Works on Film section of the Homegrown programme.

The Memory Booth (Steven Chow/2006/12 min)
Steven Chow’s stylish little piece artfully exegetes the childhood memory of a man involving a traumatic car crash with his parents on the way to a beach holiday. The Memory Booth explores the tension of the family relationship and the idea of separation. The young man enters a booth in which snippets of memory and dream are intertwined in three distinct strands distinguished both by narrative and production – lighting, colour and sound choices in particular. The narrative structure is much like that of memory and dream – somewhat fluid and non-linear. The film finds its structural framework around the central image of a beach bach that the family was on the way to when their accident occurred. This bach bookends the short; a photograph to begin and the actual location to end.

Chow uses High Definition digital technology to good effect, managing stark contrast – even with relatively muted tones of green, red and brown – in the dream strand, which draws its apple orchard imagery straight from Tarkovsky’s Ivan’s Childhood. In fact, Tarkovsky’s hand is also present in Chow’s deliberate and thoughtful pacing and use of strong recurring images. Well envisioned and cleverly shot/edited, The Memory Booth is thoughtful, enjoyable viewing; a pleasant start to the programme.

The Garden of Love (Fiona Samuel/2006/14 min)
Working with an ensemble cast of acting students, Fiona Samuels crafts a mystery-ridden drama based at a party where all restraint has been left at the door alongside the mountain of shoes. Fits of messianic violence, ‘redistribution’ of the aforementioned footwear, and worse await the insensible revellers leading to a twist of fate for all.

A low point of the selection, but not completely without merit. The ideas in this piece were reasonably smart, with a good basic plot construction, however the film was hamstrung by some wooden acting on top of a slightly jarring script. There were several moments when I found myself cringing at the screen through my fingers. Visually The Garden of Love stands up fine; the old villa setting fitting the story and aesthetic feel well. Unfortunately the cringe factor still outweighed the positives for me.

Splitting Up (Rajendra Patel/2006/11 min)
An experimental musing upon identity crisis, Splitting Up employs the use of a split screen to tell two ends of the same story slowly diverging, one from the other. The story starts in the same place and then periodically each side of the screen skips the opposite direction in time ultimately ending up with very similar shots (lying in the same bed) but 18 hours apart. Foregoing spoken dialogue, director Rajedra Patel uses mobile phone text messaging as the short’s narrative communication.

Though interesting to watch Splitting Up lacks the punch to make the screen trickery ‘a’ feature rather than ‘the’ feature. And I couldn’t quite tell if Patel was trying to give the piece a surprising twist or not – it seemed to me like he might be – but any surprise is ‘hinted’ at so unsubtly that all except the least observant will see what’s happening in the 2nd or 3rd time jump at the latest. All the same Rajendra’s short, though unremarkable, is not an unpleasant viewing experience.

The Butcher’s Wife (Kylie Plunkett/2006/11 min)
Having gained permission to film her mother’s brutal battered-wife-with-a-twist tale, Kylie Plunkett produces a small documentary both harrowing and artistically confident. Mostly made up of monologue interview, Plunkett’s mother makes for a screen-worthy subject, acquitting herself well in front of the camera. She is expansive in her thoughts and open with her emotions, whilst maintaining a reasonably steady grip on herself throughout.

Behind her subject’s narrative Plunkett mixes up the visuals by contrasting the speaking footage with various old photos and newspaper clippings and again with shots of her mother engaged in the of tasks everyday life – juxtaposing the story that is unfolding to our ears.

Offering disturbing but interesting subject matter, clever visual presentation, and a strong message of motivation and support for those in similar circumstances, The Butcher’s Wife is a deserved standout in this year’s Works on Video selection.

Fish’n’Chip Shop (Kirsten Green/2007/10 min)
The other highlight in this selection has to be Kirsten Green’s charming little romance short, Fish’n’Chip Shop. This short follows an expressive-faced young Asian girl working the counter in her parents’ titular local fish’n’chip shop. As she serves a bevy of customers could love be in the air?

The programme presenter remarked that this film plays like a roll-call of the New Zealand acting fraternity, with much of its run time looking from the protagonist’s point of view behind the front counter, watching the customers as they make their orders. Various familiar faces make order after order – the cry “two fish and a scoop” quickly gets branded on your brain – with the odd different take for interest, eg: the annoyed mother whose child insisted on ordering only to turn shy when the deed was to be done. Green intersperses mouth-watering close-up shots of the food caught in crisp high definition digital (going into the oil, being dumped into the paper and wrapped etc) accompanied by the appropriate sounds of bubbling oil and salt shaking. The possible love interest is working on a street project outside of the store window and, at the end of the work day, finally enters the store.

A combination of excellent framing, humorous screenplay and a fine portrayal of the bored but friendly employee whose face comes alive when the cute boy walks in, Fish’n’Chip Shop is a wonderfully dreamy little work that presses all the right buttons and provided a great antidote to the excellent but sober piece preceding it.

Tumanako Springs (Francis Glenday/2007/15 min)
A lonely stranger rides into an unwelcoming and isolated wee town and heads straight to the local watering hole. Right from the minute he steps into the pub you know that strange things are afoot at the Circle K. Unfortunately for the stranger something scares the townsfolk more than he does.

Coming off somewhere between a faux-Western and a Speights ad, Tumanako Springs occasionally finds the cast unable to decide between parochial rural New Zealand accents and forced American ones. Some of the scenes don’t quite sit as comfortably as they should (see the bar scene when the whisky is being poured), lacking an indefinable sense of authenticity

The From Dusk Till Dawn plotline, though mildly interesting, does not bring with it much in the way of scares. Still, Glenday has a adequately stylish manner and pulls off a pleasant, if middling, little film.