Be there to see NZ film history

We made a film. It is called Terminal .If you missed its premiere at the Lyttelton Arts Factory last month then you missed the birth of a school of cinema. Terminal is tragic, epic, Shakespearean in scope. It deals with life, death, good, god and tattoos. It is six minutes long.

I have contended for years that we should make films here. Some time last winter I said as much to Jason, who runs a video studio on Oxford St. ‘‘Jason,’’ I said, ‘‘what’s Hollywood got that Lyttelton hasn’t? Money and hype, perhaps, but not talent. We’ve got directors, actors, cinematographers like yourself. What is there to stop us making films? Real films, proper films. No Bond nonsense. No cops or car chases. No Tolkien fairy tales with talking trees. Stuff that’s recognisable. Stuff that’s true.’’

‘‘Write us a script then,’’ said Jason.

‘‘No problem,’’ I said, gulping.

When you’ve got the whole world to write about, the mind alights on nothing. The trick is to limit the field. As soon as I decided to set the story within 50 yards of Jason’s studio I had the plot in minutes, the script by the end of the weekend.

‘‘It’s yours to do as you wish with,’’ I said, handing it over like a teenage mother giving her baby to the nuns, ‘‘I ask only that you treat it with love.’’

Pete directed, Jason filmed it, Bruce, Hester and Camille acted, and four months later Terminal emerged.

Film can do things that words cannot, such as Bruce’s face in close-up. It is a face to launch a thousand ships, all sailing away at maximum knots.

Pete cut only one line from my script. He might have cut a couple more. The language of film is visual. When it comes to words, less is more.

At the end Bruce dies. I just had him slump in the tattooist’s chair but Pete and Jason had other ideas. As Bruce’s eyes went glassy they panned into a bright white light and then a stream of momentary searing images – of sex, destruction, rot and love – before emerging to soar above the roofs of Lyttelton alongside gulls and suitably soaring music. It was impressively done, but I wasn’t sure whether I liked it, whether it added or detracted.

Isent the film to Jim in Canada. When I taught him English he was a 15-year-old kid with a spiritual streak that I failed to drum out of him. Today he’s a 50-year-old father of three with a spiritual streak that I’ve given up trying to drum out of him. I sent him the film, so he could say nice things about the script. He said nice things about the death montage.

He’d recently undergone hypnosis. During the session he passed through just such a bright white light and looked down on his own flesh. It’s a common out-of-body experience, Jim said.

Under hypnosis Jim had gone on to discover a past life as a nineteenth-century Norwegian called Lars. Lars lived all his life in a cabin with a green sod roof, chopping wood, fetching water, caring for elderly parents. His brother moved out and married and had children. Lars stayed, resentful. His parents died. Lars stayed on, still resentful. He chopped wood. He carried water. He died alone, thwarted and embittered. Jim had been Lars.

‘‘If nothing else,’’ I said, ‘‘it’s a movie plot.’’ ‘‘It’s yours,’’ said Jim.

I’m working on it. At the Lyttelton Film Festival 2023 The Life of Lars may be a double bill with Terminal. Book now. I’m serious. Save you the fare to Cannes.