Out of the Blue

On November 13 1990, David Gray, an unemployed recluse, shot dead 13 people in the small coastal hamlet of Aramoana near Dunedin.

There was much conjecture about whether it was a good idea for someone to make a film about this tragic incident but it has been made and, for the most part, it has been made well.

Robert Sarkies, in a return to form after his well received first feature Scarfies, has created an amazing work of art. The opening shots of Aramoana are breath taking, and the cinematography throughout the film follows suit. The beauty of the scenery only serves to juxtapose the ugly events which take place over those 22 hours of terror.

Using Bill O' Brien's book Aramoana, Sarkies and co-writer Graeme Tetley have crafted a screenplay which focuses on subtlety and nuance. Sarkies intelligently uses these subtleties in several scenes involving Gray. Blurred camera work when Gray is on screen not only show his blurred take on reality, but also reflects his reportedly poor eyesight.

The cast is above average but two actors stand apart. It would have been inappropriate to have displayed Gray as anything but a monster, but Matthew Sunderland is able to give Gray a certain sense of pathos. His portrayal of the paranoid schizophrenic shows the killer to be a shell of a man, who has been overtaken by a terrible disease. We find him chilling and repugnant, yet one cannot help but sympathise with a person who has become so inhuman he appears more animal than man.

The other standout performance comes from Karl Urban as policeman Nick Harvey - one of the first officers on the scene. His eyes display the mixture of fear, confusion and disbelief at what lay before him at Aramoana. Watching him cradle a young girl in his arms, desperately trying to comfort her after she has been shot, is perhaps one of the most touching scenes in a movie crammed full of profound moments.

It is strange to have such a beautiful film made about such a terrible moment in New Zealand history. However, the sensitivity and emotion shown to the tragedy make the film an important commentary on the horrors of modern society. Even in a place like Aramoana, seemingly untainted by the rigours of modern life, can the harsh realities of the world be found and in these moments the human spirit is tested. The people of Aramoana and the emergency services sent to help them are testament to the fact that in the end love and compassion will prevail over the hate and disgust of sick individuals like David Malcolm Gray.

It was refreshing to watch a movie that accurately depicted events without all of the Hollywood American-Pie. The acting and cinematography made this film feel as though it were a fly-on-the-wall documentary. I feel that the subject, and particularly David Gray, could have done with more of an introduction. The movie was 100 minutes long but I was so engrossed by the candid nature of the film, it felt much shorter. I didn't even finish my popcorn and drink! All-in-all, this is a hard-hitting movie about a tragic incident. It isn't glamourised at all and I came out of the movie feeling quite subdued. Worth a watch.

Sarkies does a brilliant job setting up the feel and mood of a small New Zealand seaside town in a slice of life style, giving us a brief but sufficient set up into the lives of those involved prior to the massacre. Then, as the title suggests, out of the blue comes the dark and unexpected. Sarkies doesn't shy away from the violence and terror, nor does he glorify it. His method of storytelling via following the first affected family, to the first initial killings with Gray then onto the first (and only) officer on the scene is extremely effective in showing how tense and unpredictable David was, and how the town had a night of horrific terror. The acting is superb, the music effective, and the location beautiful (as it was shot at a neighbouring location to the actual town involved). Stand out performances by the two leading actors, although the rest of the cast (relatively unknown) perform exceptionally too.

It was inevitable that - like the Stan Graham saga of 1941 made into the movie "Bad Blood" - the Aramoana massacre of 1990 would eventually be turned into a feature film. To their credit, the cast and crew of this have done a good job of it and perhaps just as importantly, the script writers have attempted to provide a little insight into why it happened, although the full background is something that people will need to read the two books that were written about it to get. The film starts in the morning of the day it started (the events lasted into the next day) and continues - with only a couple of brief flashbacks on the part of Gray - till a conclusion just after Gray is shot dead by police. It manages to keep fairly true with the actual events (as described in the two books) although there are some departures of varying importance. The film works well as a drama and unlike a Hollywood movie doesn't portray anyone as a superhero, or thickly apply sentimentality. The cinematography is also superb.

I remember very well the events unfolding in Aramoana as it was broadcast on the TV and radio. I was a Police Officer at the time and the death of a fellow officer was tough news to hear. Seeing the events recreated on screen for the first time brought the memories flooding back. Seeing how even in a relatively peaceful nation such as New Zealand, no-one is immune from random acts of violence was very sobering. I sat bolt upright the entire movie and didn't realise it. The theater was deathly quiet. This is a movie that pulls no punches and has not an inkling of Hollywood in it. It is a sad, dramatic, true to life retelling of the massacre. This type of film is one of the reasons I avoid many of the big budget Hollywood movies. There's no glorification here, no overly animated death scenes, this is movie making at it's best. The story is being told without embellishment and in a sadly beautiful way. A must see for New Zealander's, and for anyone else interested in seeing a powerful, compelling movie. New Zealand's movie of the year, without doubt.