Film review
Must-see Kiwi movie tells a tender rural tale, plus a TV series with a vicious heart.
Bellbird
Directed by Hamish Bennett.
Starring Marshall Napier, Annie Whittle, Cohen Holloway, Rachel House and Kahukura Retimana.
After gently and authentically wooing audiences at the New Zealand International Film Festival earlier this year, local gem Bellbird is now opening across the country on general release. My advice? Don’t miss it.
Northland teacher-turned-filmmaker Hamish Bennett follows up on his awardwinning short with this feature-length ode to the deep slice of the New Zealand heartland he calls home – and what a treat this is.
It’s the story of Ross (Marshall Napier), a taciturn dairy farmer quietly, almost sullenly, wading through the many muddy seasons of the farming calendar from milking to mating to calving, determined that his just as reticent son Bruce (Cohen Holloway) will take on the farm when he retires.
As for Bruce though, he’d rather carve out a life working at the local dump alongside his boss and friend Connie (Rachel House). Bruce has a keen eye for making one person’s rubbish another person’s treasure and Connie knows a fixer-upper when she sees one.
What Bruce wants is clearly of no concern to his father and Ross slowly pressures his squeamish son into spending more time on the farm, a farm which is becoming increasingly difficult to manage on his own. The two men slowly and inexorably descend into a quagmire of slowly brewing conflict, which will come to a head and to the surface soon enough.
The small rural community their family has belonged to for generations is a constant soft pulse here, the personalities who populate it an equally constant joy. The younger eager son of a local woman up the road embodies that joy to perfection and newcomer Kahukura Retimana in this role is a stand-out. Seeing the perennially entertaining Cohen Holloway really stretch his legs was a treat too.
It’s the classic Kiwi connection of man and son, talking without talking, studiously steering clear of each other’s pain in order not to ignite their own. In telling their story, director Hamish Bennett cleverly lets the sights and sounds of the farm do some of the talking for them, punctuating proceedings with bursts of genuine hilarity. It’s a winning combination.
There is such power in gentle and authentic storytelling, and Bellbird personifies this. Tenderly breathing life into grief and healing by giving the story and its players permission to breathe themselves, and infusing it with that special kind of real Kiwi humour – it was just wonderful to watch.