New Zealand Cinema

The Darker Side of New Zealand Cinema

Map of the World - New Zealand circled bottom right.

The New Zealand Film Industry is one of the latest starting film industries to develop, and since the 1970s have only released just over 300 feature films. The population in New Zealand at the beginning of the 1970s, 2 million, (compared to 46 million in England, and 205 million in America), was too small for the film industry to be sustainable, and therefore was not highly valued as a profitable industry, and any early examples of film to come from New Zealand were made by independent filmmakers who self-funded their works, such as John O’Shea. The National Film Unit however, was a government funded producer of short films and documentaries who’s aim was to create publicity material for the country, using the picturesque scenery and untouched environment as one of its main assets.

A successful and popular example of the material created for this purpose, is the short documentary film, This Is New Zealand (directed by Hugh Macdonald, 1970), which showcased the landscape and scenery of New Zealand and used breakthrough film technology of the time, requiring three separate but synchronized 35mm film projectors to create a wider screen.

Captures from This Is New Zealand, 1970

Due to its popularity, and the result of other documentary shorts all showcasing the same elements of New Zealand, the possibility of film opened up, and in 1977, the New Zealand Film Commission was established, and aimed to encourage and promote a national film industry which would draw the attention of an international audience. “The government has subtly supported films expected to be commercially successful, along with films offering leverage for other sorts of commercial exploitation, especially tourism” (New Zealand Cinema: Interpreting the Past, 2011). At this point, audiences only perception of New Zealand was of that shown in the short documentary style adverts, which created the idea of a magical undiscovered land, but a completely juxtaposing theme of the darker side of New Zealand and the negatives of living there began to show in some of the films produced by the commission. 

One of the first films which attracted larger scale audiences in New Zealand was Sleeping Dogs (1977). In which New Zealand suffers industrial disputes and violence, similarly to how the 1981 Springbok Tour caused protests and clashes with the police.

Goodbye Pork Pie (1981) was one of the first New Zealand films which was financially stable, as well as appealing to an international audience. Although entertaining, the film shows issues of youth and adolescence, and that growing up in New Zealand can lead to delinquency. 

Once Were Warriors (1994) is another key film which shows New Zealand is not always the pastoral paradise it is portrayed to be, and that horrors such as poverty, delinquency, alcohol abuse, physical abuse and rape still exist. “There is, in a way, two New Zealand's - the pastoral paradise promoted by the image-makers looking to add value to our primary products and our tourist industry, and the ‘other’ New Zealand characterised by the unseemly and sordid” (New Zealand: A Pastoral Paradise? 2000)

This misconception about New Zealand is commented on at the beginning of the film. “Iconic colonial images of New Zealand are demolished and reconstructed beginning with the billboard hoax in the pre-credit sequence, of a landscape imagined as a pastoral paradise which turns out to be an advertisement” (New Zealand Cinema: Interpreting the Past, 2011).

'Billboard Hoax' opening of Once Were Warriors, 1994

In the late 1990s New Zealand director Peter Jackson began planning his film adaptation of The Lord of The Rings Trilogy. Released from 2001-2003, the films brought a new sense of fame and recognition to New Zealand, and again portrayed the landscapes and scenery as its most valued asset. The films also helped to further develop the New Zealand film industry and created a huge skill by using largely Kiwi production crews, and investing in massive special effects facilities, Weta Workshop and Weta Digital.

New Zealand locations used in the
Lord of the Rings Trilogy, (2001, 2002, 2003)

A film which combines both elements of showcasing the unique New Zealand scenery which also inhabits some darker themes in Taika Waititi’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople, (2016). In the film the tranquil and empty scenery represents the loneliness felt by both Uncle Hec and Ricky, showing how the isolation of the country has trapped them. This also explains the causes of Ricky’s crimes, and that the untouched surroundings of New Zealand mean's there is not much for young people to do, similarly, the cause of the delinquent acts seen in Goodbye Pork Pie.