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“IT’S ALWAYS A PLEASURE
TO FIND A DOCUMENTARY THAT IS GORGEOUSLY LIT AND SHOT
IN 35MM”
Gaylene Preston
New Zealand, 1995
Principal Cast: Pamela Quill,
Flo Small, Tui Preston, Jean Andrews, Rita Graham,
Neva Clarke McKenna, Mabel
Waititi
Print Source/Foreign Sales Agent:New Zealand Film
Commission, P O Box 11-546, Wellington, New Zealand.
Tel:
(64-4) 385-9754. Fax: (64-4) 384-9719.
It’s always
a pleasure to find a documentary that is gorgeously
lit and shot in 35mm, complete with beautifully
restored archival footage and a tasty Dolby stereo
soundtrack. And when a documentary with such sumptuous
production
values brings with it wonderful characters, arresting
stories, startling insights and new knowledge about
another era, the pleasure transcends the merely cinematic
and
rises to another level. War Stories is such a documentary.
Simply
constructed as a series of interviews overlaid with
archival footage and personal photos, War Stories
presents seven elderly women of different classes,
races and cultural backgrounds speaking about the
impact of
the Second World War on their lives. Revelation
follows revelation as Preston uncovers emotions long
repressed
by pain, smothered in shame, or disregarded as
insignificantly personal in the context of the international
politics
of war. The candour with which all these women
speak is astonishing from a group we tend to think has
either not experienced or glossed over sexual passion,
illicit
love, heroic adventure, social ostracism, career
fulfilment and painful death.
As the film progresses,
the tales become more and more surprising, the emotions
ever more deeply
felt. Because
the film is rigorously and specifically local,
presenting a wide-ranging and reverberant portrait
of New Zealand
womanhood of the period, it points the way to
a comprehensive new history. We could use films like
this from every
country, especially if they could all be as richly
provocative as this one.
- Kay Armatage
Gaylene Preston was born in Greymouth,
New Zealand, in 1947. She started working in film
in the seventies,
while
running a drama therapy programme at a psychiatric
hospital near Cambridge, England. She returned
to New Zealand
in 1977, where she directed television commercials
and several documentaries before making her
feature debut
in 1985. Filmography: Dark of Night (85), Ruby
and Rata (90), Bread and Roses (93), War Stories
(95).
Sponsored by GAP.
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