(Hidden, Homegrown: Works on Film, 9 Songs)
As the festival grinds on, the dotted lines of the online screening schedule have come to slither across my computer screen, to animatedly dance around the coloured boxes of interest representing each film, leading me to dig deep into my pockets and re-evaluate my cinema-going plans. And if the past 4 days are anything to go by, it’s clear that a certain blind faith can be exhibited in the fest selection this year.

Hidden was terror in the true sense of the word, induced by harassment from the unknowable Other. And then, the other was known. It felt as if for all the 3 minute long, action-free stills, the warnings issued by Bill and Helen Clark, and the constipating rising tension, that something more horrific should have finally punctuated the eerie experience of be watching and being watched. Perhaps the climax was such an event, but jaded cinema audiences could nary muster an “Uuugh” in unison when satisfaction was finally achieved. Somewhat unthrilling for a thriller, if stripped-back, Hidden is really a revenge film that returns to the Golden Three of guilt, cycles of violence and retribution with a cute ditty about ethnic and religious oppression thrown in that is so subliminal it might have been left out, but so gut-wrenchingly poignant that it almost single-handedly makes the film. Hidden largely succeeds at everything it attempts, and to call its pleasures “hidden” is to shamelessly indulge in shevungstituhl¹, but to say that the tension is consistently sustained throughout would be to ignore the fact that, on either side of me, one audience member was fast asleep and the other furiously text messaging and receiving calls throughout. Such is cinema-going.

The Homegrown: Works on Film were a pleasure as always, convincing me in some bizarre nationalistic way that all New Zealand short film making shares a unique structure of feeling. Perhaps it’s the tendency towards skit-like set pieces, the returning acting faces from the Street, or just the cultural cringe factor, but there seemed to be a certain adhesive quality to the programme, which elicited pure joy from its audience. Tama Tû and Truant were highlights, principally through their ability to bring light and warmth to dark, but honest reflections of New Zealand’s cultural environs.

9 Songs was little more than a fling, if a very public one. All sorts lined the SkyCity Theatre on the final screening, couples apparently hoping to shake their Monday-itis with some explicit sex. I doubt they were disappointed, perhaps it even allowed them to identify weaknesses in their own relationships, for example, how seldom they attend British glam rock concerts in contrast to the film’s Matt and Lisa. Evidence suggests sexual encounters should be supplemented with glam rock at roughly a 1:1 ratio. The bums-on-seats appeal of some negative publicity and snippets of flesh amazed in retrospect, which was not to say that the sex wasn’t erotic. A tad pedestrian, mayhaps, to those who had come expecting a repeat of Anatomy of Hell, but a tender and accurate reflection of the bedrooms of most twenty-somethings. Something should probably be said for the Antarctic scenes and the presentation of the romanticised boy-goes-bush fantasy which elicited cringes throughout, in contrast to the unadulterated selfishness and unsentimental demeanour of Lisa, but these small matters are best ignored.

And this is only Day 5...—TG