Michelle Duff
THE woman, so beautiful it is almost intimidating, raises her chin. The comb in her jet-black hair swoops sideways, and she fixes a haughty gaze on the cowering soldier. ‘‘You will do as I say.’’ Or, maybe not. It’s possible the woman, clad in a flaxen skirt, throws a coy glance behind her as she leaps easily across the forest floor. Fern-shaped sunlight falls in her wake, dappling the skin of the man who follows.
Wait – maybe that’s not quite right either.
It could be that rain is pounding furiously as the vista of Lake Rotorua opens up in front of her. She waits for a heartbeat, long enough for her admirer to catch up.
‘‘Wait!’’ he implores, the pain of a thousand scorned men seeping into his voice. ‘‘Don’t you love me?’’
The truth is, we don’t really know what happens. We never will.
French film-maker Gaston Melies shot Loved by a Maori Chieftess, one of New Zealand’s first feature films, in 1913. We know it existed. It can probably be surmised that it was a romance, especially given Melies’ penchant for shooting the thrilling and exotic. Other than that, all we’ve got is the title and location.
There’s slightly more information on Hinemoa, shot by Aussie-Kiwi filmmaker George Tarr, also in Rotorua, one year later. Promotional material from this film still exists, advertising ‘‘the legend of the pretty Maori maiden of Rotorua’’, and providing a synopsis of scenes.
Film has an ephemeral nature, but never more so than in the beginning. New Zealand’s first films were often thought of as entertainment, nothing more.
After being shown, they were destroyed, thrown into boxes, burnt; occasionally kept by the odd hoarder, but otherwise, who cared?
‘‘In the 1940s, they were actually melted down for the war effort,’’ says Film Archive chief executive Frank Stark. ‘‘Some of it was used for belts, and they used silver from the immersion to make money, of course.’’
At the beginning of the 1990s, the archive appealed for people to search the backs of sheds, the bottom drawers of offices, for any films they could find.
More than 10,000 films were handed in – everything from home videos to news reels and shorts – and a total of 40,000 films are now housed in Wellington’s film archive. There are thousands more state-produced reels at Archives New Zealand.
But that’s when the real challenge emerged – how were we going to watch them? Films made before 1950 are on nitrate or acetate stock, which deteriorates quickly. Transferring them to polyester stock means they can be preserved for another 200 to 300 years, and can also be digitised.
The only film processing lab in Australasia that could do this was Park Road Post, Sir Peter Jackson’s postproduction company in Miramar.
The lab at Park Rd dates back to 1941. It was established in Wellington as part of the government-owned National Film Unit, and the ‘‘cultural jewel’’ was bought by Jackson and his partner Fran Walsh in 1999.
But in April, Park Road Post announced it would be closing the lab. Processing film was no longer commercially viable, general manager Cameron Harland said. Hardly anyone used it any more.
FOR A month or so after the announcement, film buffs held their breath. But faster than you