Twilight of the Gods, NZ short film, 1995.
Many thanks to diana_wolf for sending me the disc with this and many other fine *snicker* quality manly love stories.
This film is shot on 16mm b/w stock, and ooh boy, it shows. I tend to take the somewhat cynical view that Antipodean short or independant films are generally overly contrived, losing their sense of narrative in favour of arty farty wank. This is no exception.
The director does not seem to know which aspect of his film to focus upon. Should he focus upon race relations during turn of the century New Zealand? Or should he instead focus of the lovestory between the maori warrior and the white soldier?
It is a confusing film that I feel struggles to find its way. There are some fine moments, such as the communion between the Maori warrior and his spirit bird, but overall, I think the narrative action is disjoined and somewhat lacking. The cinematography is adequate for a film of this nature, although the medium - 16mm - does lend itself to certain glitches in picture, largely due to the instability of the film stock. I suppose I should be grateful that it wasn't shot on 8mm.
At any rate, I found myself growing bored with this film from an academic and critical perspective, although, from a TTT fangirl perspective, I confess I was curious to see just how far the director would go in showing racial angst and interracial relationships.
Adequate, but only barely.
This film is shot on 16mm b/w stock, and ooh boy, it shows. I tend to take the somewhat cynical view that Antipodean short or independant films are generally overly contrived, losing their sense of narrative in favour of arty farty wank. This is no exception.
The director does not seem to know which aspect of his film to focus upon. Should he focus upon race relations during turn of the century New Zealand? Or should he instead focus of the lovestory between the maori warrior and the white soldier?
It is a confusing film that I feel struggles to find its way. There are some fine moments, such as the communion between the Maori warrior and his spirit bird, but overall, I think the narrative action is disjoined and somewhat lacking. The cinematography is adequate for a film of this nature, although the medium - 16mm - does lend itself to certain glitches in picture, largely due to the instability of the film stock. I suppose I should be grateful that it wasn't shot on 8mm.
At any rate, I found myself growing bored with this film from an academic and critical perspective, although, from a TTT fangirl perspective, I confess I was curious to see just how far the director would go in showing racial angst and interracial relationships.
Adequate, but only barely.