In My Father's Den

Having had to do NZ fiction at school over a decade ago and hating it, I was not sure what to expect with this film. It has made me want to go and buy the book and get back into the wonder of my country's literary heritage... but that's another story.

This film is beautiful. It's tense, funny (some of the cameos for kiwi's to look out for additional fun!)... it takes you into the heart and soul of the characters. The two main characters are portrayed so wonderfully, you feel you're an extension of them.

Not knowing the story probably helped as I was not expecting everything that comes to pass (don't want to spoil anything). The movie, though desperate at some times, makes you feel somewhat uplifted. Hope. By the way, does anyone know who did the painting? I loved it.

Last night I was privileged to see one of the most emotional, sensitive and highly enjoyable films I have seen in many years. "In My Father's Den" both premiered and opened the 51st Sydney Film Festival, which is no mean feat for a New Zealand feature film.

The film is of world class standard and I predict will easily join the ranks of other noted NZ feature films such as "Once were Warriors", "The Piano" and "Whalerider".

The storytelling is sophisticated, delicate and richly layered in such a way, that it easily deserves a second viewing. The performances from the entire cast are compelling, but none so as extraordinary as the lead performances by newcomer Emily Barclay (as Celia) and Mathew MacFadyen (as Paul Prior). The scenes between these two are simply mesmerizing. A pure joy to watch. This film achieves what few films can claim to, and that is, to create characters, which you totally believe are living flesh and blood.

I predict from this point forward, many an accomplished actor will be beating a path to Writer/Director Brad McGann's door.

Mathew MacFadyen plays a war zone photographer returning to his former his home town to attend his fathers funeral. Set in a small township in a remote area of the South Island of New Zealand. The film beautifully dramatizes the world weary Prior against the next generation who look to leave the town and experience the world for themselves. Paul's very presence creates a ripple effect across the close knit community. Some positive, some negative. Old family wounds are opened, youthful loves remembered, new relationships are forged and dark truths revealed.

The film plays it's cards slowly and steadily at first, gradually drawing you deeper into it's web. Before long you are captivated and unable to prevent yourself from becoming emotionally involved. The audience around me were drawn deeply into this beautiful film and many moved to tears. Attendees included Director Phil Noyce, Actors Geoffrey Rush, Hugo Weaving, other luminaries and several thousand of Sydney's film fraternity.

This is one of those films that successfully stays with you after you leave the cinema. I can wholeheartedly recommend it to you.

Alright, I admit family dramas with long hidden secrets are my favourites, but this has to be one of the best.

I was utterly compelled by the story, I can't remember the last time I was so emotionally engrossed. I was with Paul every step of the way. I have to see it again because I was so caught up I only noticed peripherally that the music,

cinematography and design were all delivering the perfect cinematic

experience.

As for the performances, the actors just disappeared, I was watching Paul and Celia and Jax living their lives. I felt more voyeuristic than Jonathon, as if I was witnessing private moments. What a wonderful film.

See this New Zealand film - it probably won't make you laugh, it might bring you close to tears but see it anyway. This is small town New Zealand with a huge web of intrigue showing how through misunderstandings wrong conclusions with tragic consequences can occur. The breakdown of family relationships through communication problems is also highlighted, and I could relate it to my own experience where the death of a family member did not serve to bring the family closer together but broke us further apart.

But on the upside it's also about sharing dreams and goals and looking for something better than what your current setting can offer, whether that be small town Otago or middle Eastern trouble spots. There is some beautiful rugged New Zealand scenery to be enjoyed, although don't expect it on the same scale as in LOTR, it's more just the icing on the cake here.

Definitely see it if you can handle a moderate amount of swearing, violence, sex and drug use. If you're just looking for a laugh, don't see it.

This film was Brad McGann's debut feature as director, and sadly, as it turned out, his last. The screenplay by McGann uses Maurice Gee's 1972 novel as a starting point but goes off in a different direction. In the book we are aware at the outset that a girl has been found murdered and that her sympathetic teacher is under suspicion. In the film the possibility of a crime does not arise until half-way through. In the book "father" the owner of the den was a nice elderly man who had died many years previously. In the film he has just died, and turns out to have been a lot less nice. In the book Andrew the stitched up pious brother turns out to be a very dangerous person, in the film he is not much more than a fall guy. The book has Paul (Matthew MacFadyen), the principal character as an unknown schoolteacher in an outer suburban school; the film has him as a minor celebrity returning to the scenic rural home of his youth. In both stories, however, he becomes involved with one of his pupils, Celia (Emma Barclay).

Does any of this matter to the film's entertainment value? Well, the film is beautifully photographed, and wonderfully acted, yet it ultimately fails to make any sense of the events depicted. Maurice Gee on the other hand explores the dark recesses of his character's minds and his readers get to understand why things have happened the way they have. Character-based thrillers are tricky; there is a trade-off between action and insight. Here we have some interesting characters who somehow have got lost in the plot – a mistake not made in Ray Lawrence's "Lantana" for example, although "Jindabyne" ran close to the edge.

At the end of the film there is a complete stuff-up – the final scene should been the second to last scene. The director did it on purpose, according to the DVD commentary, through a reluctance to bump off his favorite character.

This film was Emma Barclay's first. She has gone on to a real triumph in "Suburban Mayhem" but you can see the talent here already. Matthew MacFadyen as Paul was doing his first feature too, though he has had considerable TV experience ("Spooks"). His English accent is a bit out of place in the land of the long lost vowel but the moodiness is right on. Miranda Otto as Andrew's distracted wife was like a sleepwalker but that was what the part requires. Colin Moy as Andrew was very impressive – his animus towards Paul was palpable even before he opened his mouth.

Maurice Gee set his novel in semi-suburban West Auckland in the late sixties and the film-makers have used present-day Central Otago, mostly in and around Alexandra, as their setting. This is fair enough, and Central Otago is a very photogenic part of NZ, but it does tend to overplay the return of the prodigal element. Again, Maurice Gee makes it clear that the semi-rural past that Paul grew up in has well and truly gone, but in the film it seems not to have changed at all.

If I were Maurice Gee I would be in two minds about this film. On the one hand the filmmakers have handled the central story – the relationship between Paul and Celia – very sensitively. On the other hand much of the careful characterization of the novel has been lost, and the "backstory" has been made incoherent. If I hadn't read the novel (which I did before and after seeing the film) I still would be complaining about the ending. But I guess most viewers won't be doing that and will still find this an evocative piece.