‘Their aroha made me so happy’
He said he wouldn’t do it. ‘‘I’d promised myself not to,’’ says Florian Habicht. The award-winning Aucklandbased director had decided to give up making documentaries. ‘‘I wanted to make some money and not just be a struggling film-maker.’’
This was a big deal. Since 2004’s Kaikohe Demolition, Habicht has crafted tender portrayals of the people he films across a career that gave him many highs.
He’d filmed his own relationship on the streets of Manhattan for 2011’s acclaimed Love Story, a film so good that when Pulp front man Jarvis Cocker saw it, he invited Habicht to document his own band.
The result, 2014’s Pulp: A Film About Life, Death and Supermarkets, led to more offers for Habicht to make big money documentaries about Beck, Def Leppard and New Order.
‘‘I could have made heaps of money on some of these projects,’’ he says.
Instead, Habicht followed his gut and decided to come home.
‘‘I told myself, ‘No, I’m going to go back to New Zealand.’ I’ve always followed my gut and did what I believed was true.’’
By 2017, he seemed to be continuing on that upwards trajectory with Spookers, a film that followed those working behind the masks at the South Auckland scare factory.
But it didn’t go well. ‘‘I did have a bit of a hard time after Spookers,’’ says Habicht.
‘‘It was a film about mental health and wha¯ nau, but the marketing also implied that it was a horror movie, so lots of my normal audience was put off.’’
It got him down. ‘‘I was thinking, ‘I’m not in Hollywood making big films, I’m not rich, did I make the right choices in my life?’ I was questioning it: ‘Maybe I should have gone down a different route?’’’
So he started writing feature film scripts, and turned his attention to making commercials. He says he’d tried to avoid advertising for a long time, but joined a friend’s agency and, surprisingly, enjoyed himself.
Making car safety commercials for the NZTA gave him money, satisfied him creatively, and gave him time to work on his scripts.
‘‘It was a hard step, but as soon as I started doing it, I really loved it,’’ says Habicht. ‘‘It wasn’t just selling my soul to the devil. These ads were saving lives. I was actually doing something good.’’
Creating ads and making feature films, that was his future. Then he met James and Isey Cross. Habicht had been in Northland filming the motherand-son pair for a popular Instant Kiwi commercial, and instantly liked them.
‘‘The aroha, the love between them, it really moved me, and it made me so happy. Living in Auckland you get caught up in material values, you see all the cars and the $2-$3 million houses,’’ he says.
‘‘These two don’t need those kinds of things, but they have so much love. They live this really beautiful life in Kawakawa.’’
Habicht knew they would be a great fit for his style of documentarymaking, an intimate and loving look at a woman just weeks away from her 100th birthday, and her son who was caring for his mum while planning a celebration for up to 300 people.
They were classic Kiwi characters, perfect for putting on film. Better yet, they wanted him to do it. ‘‘In James’ mind I was [already] making the film,’’ says Habicht.
But he stuck to his word. He said no. The world had other plans. ‘‘I got really bad insomnia,’’ says Habicht. ‘‘I’d told myself, ‘I can’t make another doco.’ But I’d wake up at 2-3am lying awake in bed because I knew I [had to] do this.’’
So he headed up to Kawakawa on his own with no plans other than to start shooting. He had no financing, no film crew, no money. Just his own camera with ‘‘beautiful Russian lenses from Moscow’’.
‘‘I didn’t tell any of my friends I was making this film, or the Film Commission. I was like, ‘I’m just going to do this.’ I didn’t want any pressure.’’
The result, in theatres next week, is stunning. Called James & Isey, Habicht has painted an intensely personal, stunningly intimate portrait of a mother and son’s relationship that will make you laugh and bring a tear to your eye.
It is uniquely New Zealand, unlike any other Kiwi film in recent memory. ‘‘As soon as I started filming them, things would happen and I’d go, ‘Oh my god, no-one can write this stuff, this is just incredible,’’’ says Habicht. ‘‘I’ve spent years scriptwriting and the best stuff is just falling from the sky.’’
He’s right. Habicht’s film captures the young-at-heart Isey doing things most women nearing their 100th birthday really shouldn’t be doing.
At one point, while wrapped in a Hello Kitty shawl, Isey goes big game fishing in an attempt to catch her next marlin.
At another, when Habicht asks her about James’ birth, she replies: ‘‘Popped him out and that’s it. Nek minnit...’’
Then there’s her 100th birthday party, at which she sings, cracks jokes to the crowd, and is serenaded by her grandson, the wildly popular Six60 frontman Matiu Walters.
James is just as important as Isey in Habicht’s film. He gave up his career as a singer and actor and returned home to look after his father who was dying from cancer.
After he passed, James stayed on to look after his mother, and he’s been doing that for the past 20 years.
Habicht says he fell in love with the pair and their way of life. ‘‘Usually a film-maker has to spend a year with a subject to get their trust,’’ he says. ‘‘They invited me with open arms into their wha¯ nau from the word go. It’s kind of like fate. These two just fell from the sky. When I stepped into their world in Kawakawa, we all knew it was meant to be.’’
Staying with his parents, Habicht shot the film on a shoestring. His mum supplied lunch – ‘‘sandwiches and apple cake’’ – and James would help out with equipment using skills learnt from his performing background.
‘‘People wonder why people seem so relaxed and it’s so intimate [in my films]. It’s because there’s no crew. It means you get something special,’’ says Habicht. ‘‘The film was made with love.’’
Ahead of its theatrical debut, Habicht had to show the finished film to his stars to get their blessing. He organised a screening at a Kerikeri cinema, and with James sitting on his right, and Isey on his left, James & Isey started rolling.
It was nerve racking. ‘‘I could feel them. James was very emotional, tears. For Isey, this is someone who hasn’t been to the cinema since World War II. I don’t think she understood what we were making, but she was euphoric. She just stood up and said, ‘Excellent! Excellent!’
‘‘James told me that she spent the whole night and the next day saying how awesome it was. They really loved the film.’’
For Habicht, that feels like redemption.
The years of struggle, the financial worries, and his regret at turning down bigger opportunities, suddenly made sense.
‘‘When I was making this, what was going on in my head was, ‘There’s no other film in the whole world I’d want to make than this,’’’ he says. ‘‘Give me the biggest, flashest project – no. I love this.’’
Florian Habicht’s James & Isey is in theatres on May 6.