Film festival — a must to experience
Mentioned in Despatches:
What a beautiful irony . . .
And how telling is this? In front of me, on my screen, is the masthead line Pop Up Globe New Zealand Tour – Measure For
Measure. The play, to show at Clarence Street at the end of the month, is yet another Shakespearean insight into human behaviour which is both hugely entertaining and revealingly perceptive.
Unbelievably, behind the banner headline stretching right across the screen, is a photograph of an arena packed with people, thousands of them, watching a spectacle not dissimilar to gladiatorial combat in an ancient colosseum.
This, however, is not a sellout performance of Pop Up Globe’s Measure For Measure. It is Hamilton’s Rugby Park, that rarely used battleground set aside by our City Council for the rugby baying (sic) pleasure of its citizenry, and the game? Chief’s versus Blues. Are they serious? Really? Or Is this Bottom I see before me?
This is a festival with a wonderfully exciting history. It developed through that exciting era when men in floppy raincoats pored over the censor’s certificates to find the juiciest of entertainments, the steel corseted Mrs Patricia Bartlett founded the famous (sic) Society for the Promotion of Community Standards, and cinephiles like Lindsay Shelton fought religious bigotry, vested interest, and popular prejudice to show audiences that there is more to cinema than cheap seats in the greasy stalls.
Originally set up as individual festivals in centres like Auckland and Wellington, the efforts of Roger Horrocks in Auckland and Lindsay Shelton and his team in Wellington to bring films of genuine artistic relevance to audiences morphed into the festival as we know it, under the inspired guidance of the just retired Bill Gosden.
It established two significant differences from commercial cinema. The first was an opportunity for audiences to see original foreign films from the world’s great national cinemas, many of which were quite unknown to New Zealand audiences.
The second was the introduction of a new censor’s certificate, the NZFFC, which enabled festival audiences to view major films which would otherwise have been rejected by New Zealand’s conservatively archaic censorship legislation.
They were halcyon days of new and uplifting cinema experience, and under Gosden’s guidance, the festival experience has maintained a level of quality and interest which simply does not exist in a commercial cinema dominated by the mindless spectacle of Marvel Comics.
Under Sharon Byrne’s management and Sandra Reid’s programming for 2019 there are around fifty feature titles being screened, and many of these will have only one Hamilton screening. A few of the most popular will eventually end up in our Rialto general programming, but you will always be better off being in an audience with all the festival energy going off around it. This preview does not choose, or offer suggestions. That would be to suggest some films are more worthy than others.
None is ‘better’, only different. You, absolutely, need to make your own choices from the excellent catalogue, available from the Rialto, or on line. Go, see ourselves as others see us and be inspired by the experience. Raincoats no longer needed.
August 15 2019. Utter revelation. The ten guitars of the Don’t Fret It group were seriously in tune and in synch, with individual riffs morphing seamlessly from player to player, supported with enormous sensitivity by the rest of the group, and demonstrating a technical mastery which shouted discipline, and practice, and theoretical understanding which was to typify the whole evening. It had begun with a moody, haunting, atmospheric orchestral performance of the Shan Chuan” (Mountain and River) Overture written by Waikato University’s Xu Tang, a commissioned work for Hillcrest High School.
It was a world premiere, and worthy. The orchestra performed the piece with sensitivity and style, and met the virtuosic demands of a difficult and unusual work with skill and confidence, as did the night’s other stars.
It would be a delight to be able to identify and discuss each group. I do not have the space. Instead, two or three performances can be taken as representative.
I had heard the eight handed, two pianos, intelligent arrangement of Grieg’s wonderfully evocative Peer Gynt Suite, played in, I think, the Gallagher Theatre some months ago.
That performance was memorable, but the group, like everyone in this concert, continues to improve.
Under the control of the eyebrows, and occasional head movements, of Kari Nel, Rose Zhao, Lillian Feng, and Donovan Chien offered a fresh and passionate interpretation which could only have come from a dedication and informed commitment one would only expect to find in experienced and serious professionals.
The extremes were remarkable, and accessible, ranging from Hannah and Molly Huggen’s bagpipes and snare drum duet, in which the hornpipe, Calm Before the Storm sounded closer to classical piobareachd, than the simpler versions of the form. At the other extreme, Jianru Mo played the exotic and visually as well as aurally beautiful guzheng, a plucked instrument with many strings and multiple harmonics, with an audience dazzling panache and flair.
And then, there was a cellist who brought the evening’s aural highlights from those familiar classical strings. Joo Eun Kim, lead cello for the orchestra, playing the cello score in the earlier Piano Trio, and finally, with Annie Li on violin, producing the kind of music one hears from the best string players.
The odd title in the programme Smells like Teen
Spirit put a delightful gloss on an evening notable for the entertainingly accomplished music and the players and vocalists who provided it.
Roll on the construction of our new Regional Theatre.