SÁNDOR LAU's documentary journey from Auckland to Cape Reinga continues here.


» [Part A] | Part B

The Enlightenment Factory

THE AVERAGE American spends 1,460 hours, (or the equivalent of two consecutive months at 24 hours a day) watching television(3). Average Kiwis and Aussies spend a mere 1,000 hours (42 days) a year in televisiual training.(4)

Whatever the per hour cost, those sponsoring the programming are obviously not doing so out of good will. McDonald's spends an annual advertising budget of US$1.2billion(5) (roughly the gdp of Djibouti, Vanuatu or Bhutan)(6). And it's no secret that in addition to clearly delineated advertising; corporations also directly lobby program makers to write their products into their shows.(7)

Which is perhaps the greatest evidence of television's effectiveness as a behaviour management device. And it's no surprise subjects are chosen to go on television for their capacity to replicate the ideas they've been trained on for 1000 hours a year since birth.

Which is exactly why for Behaviours of the Backpacker, I chose subjects like Bel and Dror, and Richard, a Frenchman who says, "All the things they say about France, it's all pretty much true because we're all just big fuckers'. Calvin Kan, a Chinese-American I meet in the Bay of Islands says, "When I come here, I'm American. I'm from Los Angeles, California; I'm American. But at home I'm Asian." And I have bad dreams of the million dollar alternative universe with him telling how he likes McDonald's more than noodles.


Tangata Whenua

Ron, a twice-divorced middle-aged American backpacker looking for a new life tells me about his love of Herman Melville, and his fantasies of finding a Polynesian paradise here in New Zealand.

Willie, a Mäori carver, tells me, "Some of them, they have this idea that we are living back in the eighteenth century and we should all be sitting around a fire cooking...'Why aren't you carving?' Hang on, you know, it's the year 2002."

The fact that television highlights Mäori achievements in the fields of rugby, crime, prison, health problems, and cultural performances comes as no surprise, even at the NZ $140,000/hour figure. A positive image is always available for a certain price, just as a negative one can be softened for a certain price. The average Mäori income of NZ$14,800 is NZ$4000 under the national average(8). Media spokespeople and advertisers do not work for free.

Behaviours of the Backpacker is a story about exile, and while the middle-class backpackers of the documentary may seem to have very little in common with the Mäori of Northland, they are all people who cannot be at home in their own countries. To highlight the story of colonisation and dispossession of Mäori, I chose the story of Ngawha, sacred springs where the NZ government is building a prison.

Riana, a kaitiaki (guardian) of the springs, told me,

"Our tupuna (ancestor), Kariariki, found the springs. From Kariariki to myself, it's sixteen generations, you see. One of the kaupapa, kaupapa is the purpose, of the land is that it's a place of healing...when the waters are not well, we are not well. A prison here, that will interfere with the flows of the waters...which means that it will interfere basically with us."

While it is standard practice for media to highlight Mäori as spiritual people with strong connections to the land, it's almost against the rules to put that spirituality and connection with the land into an immediate and political context.


My Journey

I am not Mäori, which puts me in a difficult position making a film dealing with issues of Mäori land rights and spirituality. Certainly much of the problem with current representation of Mäori comes from outsiders telling those stories.

I have attempted to allow the Mäori subjects of my film to tell their own stories in their own words, without voiceover interference to 'explain' what they are talking about, as is standard journalistic practice. In my experience as a television journalist, it is not the direct intention of corporate documentarians and journalists to distort their representation of their subjects, but the overwhelming result is that it happens anyway, often as a result of time constraints. Once again, I had a sufficient amount of the one thing large and expensive broadcasts do not – time.

My primary strategy, however, in dealing with Mäori subject matter as a non-Mäori, was my same strategy for every other aspect of the film – to be open about it.

In addition to saving budget by being my own frontman and narrator, I wanted to be open about where I was coming from and whose opinions were shaping the film. And I feel this payed off in a number of ways.

Since it was just me shooting, I was able to spend time, usually days, building personal relationships with my subjects, without worrying about the crew or the schedule or the budget. And since it was just me walking, I think I gained the trust of many people who know (either intuitively or consciously) that corporate media routinely misrepresent them.

In the end, Behaviours of the Backpacker is my story about my ideas, my opinions and my journey. So being a character in it only made sense – as a show of respect to viewers to be open about its subjectivity, and as a narrative thread tying together all the other stories.


The Home Stretch

I feel the strongest sense of walking backwards, when, after reaching Cape Reinga and finishing one of the finest experiences of my life, I'm condemned to watching 47 hours of field footage and spending months staring at a screen and editing it by myself.

Nearly half of the budget goes towards transcribing the field tapes. In five months of post-production, I am reminded by my school that 1) 47 hours of tape is far too much, 2) spending 5 months editing is against both industry practice and school rules, and 3) I should tone down or remove the Mäori portion of the film dealing with the prison.

I find the music from three main sources: Ralph Bennett, a gypsy singer/songwriter who travels the country in a housetruck; Matthew Brennan, an unemployed art school graduate who has his guitar confiscated while busking a week after we record; and three friends who run a Mäori radio show on the local campus station. I pore over their collection for weeks without finding the right sound and only then does my friend Rerewa, an experienced performer, offer, "We could do something for you." In the end it takes three months, and all the music is a gift – one that could neither be found nor bought with a budget.

Distribution

Like meaningful discussions of Mäori land rights, or hippies testing the theory that the universe provides everything you need, a non-commissioned documentary is a rarity in the broadcasting world. And like Mäori land rights and hippies, not always welcome.

My initial approaches to the only two broadcasters of NZ local content were qualified up front with the understanding that if selected (and no guarantees), they would do me a big favor and broadcast my documentary for free! One of the two returned my tape with a 'not interested' reply and it took about a week to give up waiting for the other.

After working nearly a year as a reporter at Asia Down Under TV program, an Asian NZ magazine show, I convinced my producer to air it, for which I received enough payment for the purchase and a year's maintenance of a 1988 Toyota Corolla.

Behaviours of the Backpacker screened in two parts on Asia Down Under, TV1 (TVNZ) in December 2003, and received the show's highest ratings for that year. An excerpt is online at lessfilm.com. It is also now available to rent and buy on VHS/DVD from arovideo.co.nz.

» [Part A] | Part B