Text by Bob Harvey, Photographs by Tony Bridge
Exisle Publishing, HB$59.95

By Lindsay Shelton
Awa Press, PB $39.99 | Reviewed by Alexander Bisley

Whata ngarongarongo he tangata,
toitu te whenua.

People disappear,
but the land remains.

Kia tupato i nga whakawai
Kia kaha ra, kia kaha ra

Land is all we have
to rest a throbbing heart

New Zealand’s landscape is a great taonga. There have been plenty of handsome coffee tables lavishly paying homage, but White Cloud, Silver Screen is the first dedicated to filmed landscapes, with capsule reviews. What a good idea.

Today, Mike Newell imbues Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire with a dark, brooding sensibility. He did this memorably with 1982’s Bad Blood. This book features two evocative, beautiful photos from Kowhitirangi, Westland, where the film was shot. “The true story of New Zealand’s first serial killer, Stan Graham, whose pent-up anger resulted in the slaying of seven people, including three policemen. Filmed in the remote are of Westland where the actual events took place during World War Two… set against a backdrop of the almost impenetrable green wall of dense bush that rises from the West Coast valleys to the mountain tops.”

Other fine location photos by Tony Bridge, from Sleeping Dogs and Smash Palace to In My Father’s Den and River Queen, are included. Bob Harvey, like Lindsay Shelton, is a Film Commission man and savvy about the local scene. The gorgeous top of the South, where the little seen Among the Cinders was shot, is one area that could be employed more by our artists.

We all know about the scenic beauty, but we have a national cinema, all things considered, to be pretty proud of, was my lingering thought after reading White Cloud, Silver Screen and Shelton’s The Selling of New Zealand Movies. Shelton’s chatty, useful book tells the selling of NZ film, from Sleeping Dogs on. As marketing director of the New Zealand Film Commission for 25 years, Shelton is well placed to cover the period.

It’s a reminder that right-wingers who say the market should decide, that government shouldn’t intervene, are wrong. They ignore that without the commission’s involvement and support of Peter Jackson’s early films such as the dementedly brilliant Braindead, from financing through to marketing, The Lord of the Rings and the enormous boost to our economy and creative capital would never have happened.

Both books feature Ngati, a wonderful, uplifting story, set on the East Coast, and possibly the best New Zealand movie ever made. Ngati – why hasn’t someone put it out on DVD yet? – was written by Tama Poata, starred Wi Kuki Kaa and was directed by Barry Barclay. Poata, a massive figure in Aotearoa’s cultural and political life, died two weeks ago to insufficient media coverage. A mighty totara has fallen, RIP.

With The World’s Fastest Indian on now and King Kong, River Queen, Sione’s Wedding and others coming soon, the future augurs well. Some proselytise we should be an appendage of George Bush’s America. As Shelton notes, “We need our own stories and our own heroes. We need to hear our own voices.” Or Harvey’s Charles Brasch reference, “Society can be said to have come of age when it begins to live by an imaginative order of its own.”