Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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series) but about spirituality “personified in an everyday context”. 482 This is again
reminiscent of Bazin’s comments about a film like Bresson’s Le Journal d’un Curé de
Campagne (Diary of a Country Priest, 1950), with Ringatu substituting for
Catholicism. 483
The second aspect that Ward was interested in when he made the documentary was to
show the situation of Niki as a disabled person in a rural Maori community. The subject
of how Maori people look after their sick or disabled had not yet been dealt with, in
either a film or a book, and Ward was interested in contrasting Maori attitudes with
Pakeha treatment of the disabled, which at that time was often to isolate them in a
hospital away from their families. He believes that the film “exemplifies a general
attitude prevalent among rural Maoris: a disabled person belongs in his own home.
Specifically it shows the great lengths one old Maori woman takes to look after her
handicapped son”. Niki’s situation was however, by no means an ideal one in that, as
Ward points out: “Within the wider community, the son is virtually ignored. He is
isolated and he is lonely. No one visits him and in a marae situation he is left to
himself”. Ward observes that while Niki was totally dependent on his mother and
lacking in motivation, he was intelligent and spoke English well, considering his lack of
education. 484 In the film, Ward takes the approach that “actions speak louder than
words” and what became therefore “of central importance” was the observation and
recording of Niki’s actions and the way he described the situation.
The final aim specified by Ward in his dissertation, was to show the dependency and
interdependency of Puhi and Niki’s relationship. Ward was of the opinion that it was
too simplistic to categorise Niki as being dependent on Puhi and Puhi as being the
caregiver on whom he relied, for Puhi’s “need to be needed” was as great as Niki’s
“need”, and that “if Niki died, Puhi would die soon after”. The complexity of their
relationship and the ways in which the relationship worked were therefore “the heart of
the film”, in Ward’s view. He makes the observation that: “These two have lived with
each other for so long that conversation has become virtually superfluous. It is a silent
milieu where actions speak the only truth. After they have argued, their reconciliation
is not marked by words but by a return to the old order of things. The recriminations
482
Ward, “A Documented Account of the Making of In Spring One Plants Alone,” Section on Aims.
483
Bazin, What Is Cinema? Vol.1.
484
Ward, “A Documented Account of the Making of In Spring One Plants Alone,” Section on Aims.