testing the floating feeling

The appearance of a feature length film made in New Zealand always comes as a suprise. 'Test Pictures' the film in point, comes 4 years after Rudall Hayward's 'To Love A Maori'—the last feature length film made in New Zealand. 'Test Pictures' is also the first feature length film to come out of the 'Alternative Cinema' co-operative in Auckland. For these points alone, its release is a remarkable event.

The makers of 'Test Pictures' faced the same problems as their predecessors—crises over finance, equipment and processing facilities. (The final soundmixing and printing had to be done in Australia). The film-makers invested $7000 of their own money and worked full-time for months without pay. While the Queen Elizabeth 11 Arts Council did made a very important contribution of $7000, the film's final budget of $14,000 was still extremely small—the kind of budget usually devoted to a 25-minute television documentary.

Film-makers who are faced with problems of finance and distribution may decide to concentrate on box-office entertainment in the case of Australia's 'Alvin Purple', or they may attempt to make a doublelayer film like 'Barry McKenzie Holds His Own' which interweaves subtlety and obviousness. Or they may ignore the demands of the box-office entirely, and conduct some kind of film experiment. It is this choice that distinguishes 'Test Pictures' from all the other previous NZ feature films. It is so uncompromising—or so fool hardy if you like—that I don't think the group has much chance of retrieving their $7000.

If any money is earned by screening 'Test Pictures' the film crew will be given some pay for their four months' work, and those who put their own money into the film may be able to recover part of their $7000.

'Test Pictures' does not have anything profound to say about life, but it does capture the flavour of a particular landscape. The spectator must stop worrying about the absence of a plot, and must stop waiting for 'something to happen', so that he can respond fully to the image that is on the screen at the moment. Otherwise, he is likely to be bored. Geoffrey Steven's photography and Philip Dadson's sound-track make small events in the film rich and sensuous—a woman washing herself, for example, or stepping outdoors into bright sunlight, or walking through sand.

The strong points of 'Test Pictures' are obviously its imaginative sound-track and photography. Anyone who regards photography simply as the 'icing on the cake' will fail to notice most of the information and experience that is contained within the visuals. The weak points of 'Test Pictures' are its acting and dialogue. The film has a rich texture but a weak overall structure. A mood of sadness pervades most of the film, which various objects and incidents seem about to symbolize and to bring into focus, without ever quite succeeding. This vague suggestiveness is one reason why the film seems dreamlike. 'Floating feeling' of this kind is often found in poetry but it is difficult stuff to handle. In the case of 'Test Pictures' the second half would have benefitted from a lot more variation in mood.

'Test Pictures' has to be judged as a first feature-film made under appalling conditions. The filmmakers will certainly go on to create better films—provided they are not saddled with too many debts from this one. Despite its weaknesses, 'Test Pictures' is a very impressive debut.