Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

211
than bread and butter. I think it extraordinary that a country can be divided and
people get their heads split open over a visit of a rugby team from a country
thousands of miles away. That wouldn’t happen in many other countries but
shows that New Zealand is now a country whose values are not purely
concerned with shelter and produce. This sort of a society is more open to new
ways of seeing. 697
Ward is referring here to the protests around the Springbok tour of 1981 - protests
which, incidentally had strong support from the New Zealand film industry, as
evidenced by films such as Merata Mita’s Patu! (1983). Ward’s discussions of New
Zealand identity thus stress its complex and changing character, and he is obviously
concerned to probe beyond social surfaces. His themes - the story of a girl coming to
terms with physical changes, with the sudden death of her father and with the arrival of
a stranger who creates family tensions - are the stuff of many myths and fairytales, and
we might describe his basic approach as seeking the archetypal within (or beyond) the
local.
The fact that the film can be read as easily from an international as from a traditional
“New Zealand” perspective perhaps accounts for its critical (if not commercial) success
overseas, particularly in Europe. It was the second New Zealand film (after Sam
Pillsbury’s The Scarecrow, 1982) to be invited to the Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes
Film Festival and the first New Zealand film to be selected for competition at Cannes.
The founding director of the Directors’ Fortnight, Pierre-Henri Deleau, on his visit to
New Zealand, described the film as “a masterpiece”, but the opinions of the critics at
Cannes were divided. 698 The film was subsequently shown in a number of other
European countries as well as in Australia and the US. A review in Variety commented:
“Ward’s landscape is archetypal New Zealand, but universal as well […]. The
remarkable quality of the film is the way it gives fresh resonance to universal
themes”. 699 The Pressbook of Vigil, put out by the New Zealand Film Commission,
contains a number of selected reviews published shortly after the film’s overseas release
which demonstrate the ability of the film to be read either as a “New Zealand film” or as
a generic art-house (or auteur’s film). David Robinson, of The Times, London,
697
Ward quoted in Lewis, "Kiwi Fruit Springs from a Hard Terrain."
698
"New Zealand Director Gains Cannes Recognition," Evening Post 13 February 1984.
699
"Vigil," Variety 2 May 1984.