Our wonderful teenagers

Last week I had the privilege of taking some of my daughter's year 11 English class to the Auckland Readers and Writers Festival. There was a special day for secondary school English students and they listened to three authors present their works and talk about the life of a writer and Ivy Lies talking about writing pop songs. Ivy Lies came to life when they played their music. Obviously happier expressing themselves in music than the spoken word.
But it was also the week when a King's College student drank himself to death, and this week, we learn that another boy from that college has died. Also last week a 13 year old knifed his maths teacher. What's going on with our young people?
I was, I must admit, impressed with the intelligence and depth of the questions asked by the young people at the readers and writers programme. I was impressed with their behaviour. I was completely unimpressed by one of the MCs, who decided telling off colour jokes was appropriate for a secondary schools programme. I don't know the name of the MC, although his face was familiar to me, I think from TV comedy programmes, but his likening of reading to making love to a woman (in graphic detail) and his joke about an octopus and a set of bagpipes (use your imagination) were completely inappropriate, and our lovely Christian College kids were not the only ones gasping in disbelief.
How do I connect this to the horrible events in the news?
I can only conclude that somehow we are selling our teenagers short. We are forcing them to grow up too early. We are teaching them that adult stuff - drinking, sex etc - is fun, and that there is no price to pay. So the young man who drank himself to death was kicking over the traces just one night. He almost certainly had no idea that a bottle of vodka could kill him. Why not? Because we are selling lies about adult vices. We are telling them it's fun, there is no price to pay. They can play in the adult's play pen and not pay a price. And the MC was pandering to this. "Hey kids, I know you really want to be adults so I'm going to treat you like adults. Not like your nasty teachers and parents who want to keep you children."
Research has shown that our brains are not fully formed, not connected up completely, until around 25 years of age. That means that all of our secondary age children are still growing, still susceptible, still able to suffer damage from careless adults peddling adult things. It's time we, as a society, took better care of them.
Someone asked me the other day if I thought I was wrapping may children in cotton wool having them at a Christian school.
My answer is - until they are adults (legally 18, biologically 25) - I am going to protect them from the adults that do not have their best interests at heart, who want to exploit their natural inclination to want to separate from me, to protect them from a society that is determined they experiment and experience everything before they are mature enough to work out what they really want from life.
And I do not apologise.
BTW I know King's College very well. I know that the events of the last week would have had a completely devastating effect upon the community of that school. I know that, as far as it is possible to tell, the events of the last two weeks have nothing to do with the school.

48 Hours of disagreement with the judges

As usual I didn't agree with the judges at the 48 hours Auckland finals on Saturday night. I felt there were at least three movies among the 16 finalists that outdid the winner and runner up.
Runner up was Confessions of a Fabricator - dodgy undergraduate sexual insinuation with a sock (yawn). Winner was Only Son, by the Downlow Concept who have won before with something very similar. This wasn't a bad movie, just not exceptional among the 16 on offer.
One made it from our heat (heat 10). This was Humanity: the Last Seven Minutes which was at least original - the filmmaker obviously has contacts all over the world and they sent in their contributions over the net - and IMO boasted the best performance by an actress of the night (a woman in a subway train somewhere - in Europe or Australia, I couldn't quite figure out where). The judges' "best actor" was one decision I agreed with - this was the desperate father in Carousel - a magnificent exercise in suspense, marred somewhat by a weak ending.
OK - my favourites (I actually can't pick a winner):
The Pool - car pool goes wrong. Clever idea, neat trick ending, cool use of the required line.
Lost Call - ghost movie. An idea I have heard somewhere before, but still very well done and subtle.
Two Timer - a rarity. A love story that champions commitment, marriage, kids - the whole deal.
There was some stylish work among this lot - how the judges came up with the two winners is beyond me.

Taking on a sacred cow

I've been contemplating our "state religion", wondering why it is so sacred to New Zealanders and what its prominence means for our country.

When I was a child, and there were a lot of WW2 veterans around, Anzac Day was commemorated with poppies and we sang God Save the Queen (our national anthem then) at school. I think we even raised the flag. But it was a day - we commemorated the fallen, we were grateful - but it was just a day.

Sometime in the last 20 years, just as the veterans were disappearing, the whole Anzac thing has taken off and thousands of the younger generation (younger than me) are turning up for dawn parades and solemnly praying - something ...

And that is my problem. We have lost our religion in this country. Many of us still believe in something, but as a nation we have lost it. God is invisible in our public spheres. So Anzac Day has become a kind of secular celebration, an elevating of fallen heroes with no acknowledgment of who we are praying to. Are we praying to them as their ghostly shades haunt our land? Are we simply going through a form of words unable to acknowledge that there is nothing to which we pray? Or should we perhaps acknowledge that they died not only in the service of their country but also in the service of the freedom endowed upon them by their Creator?

Alas, Anzac commemorations are the only form of public spirituality available to Europeans in this country. (In a curious twist it is OK for Maori and Polynesian and the different Asian communities to be publicly spiritual.) I believe Anzac Day has become so prominent because we are being denied other public avenues for expressing the sacred in our lives.

And we have an odd attitude to war itself. I recently read an article about the shock expressed when it emerged NZers had actually fired shots in Afghanistan. The article basically said: "Well, d'oh, in a war you shoot people." I would say we're almost schizophrenic about war. At the same time as we honour our war heroes, our culture dislikes and devalues the current defence forces, consistently downsizing them and reducing their resources. I saw Gaylene Preston on TV recently (Sunday April 18 TV1), in a clip promoting her film memoir of her father's war (Home by Christmas), say war was always pointless - "Just remember, don't go." "There's no need for war." "There's no just war." (Actual quotes from TVNZ OnDemand.)

I don't think that's very honouring to our war dead and veterans.

War should always be a last resort. Many modern conflicts do seem pointless, resembling tangles more than the nice surgical operations the politicians tout before the event. But we need to think very carefully before we decide all war is pointless. Gaylene's movie was about WW2. Has she thought about the implications of allowing the aggressors their way in that conflict?

Simply put - sometimes the enemy is bent on aggression, injustice and intimidation. If you don't fight them, you lie down and die.

And that's pointless.

Heat 10 Rocks - 48 hours 2010

Up front I must confess we had an entry in Heat 10 of the Auckland competition of 48 Hours. I'm not going to include it in this review. It was cool. I helped write it. Enough said.

The "V 48 Hours" film making competition has become something of an institution in NZ film circles, with all sorts from professionals to school children having a go. This is the sixth year I've been involved. My involvement mostly involves late night Friday night trying to write a script that makes sense, conforms to the limitations of our resources, and includes all the required elements - up to 7 minutes long, a line, a character with a certain characteristic, a prop and a genre. There's also a required shot, but I leave that to the actual filmies - I haven't a clue what a dolly shot is.

This year Heat 10 (our usual heat) seemed better than usual. I liked all the movies. The couple I didn't really "get" were technically accomplished. Some of the usual teams were not present (in another heat?) - including some teams I recall being caught in a stylistic/theme rut. A risk of entering year after year - under pressure the same ideas tend to be rehashed.

One team had a character dressed as a steak - another danger of 48 hours - "we have a really cool costume and we're going to use it whatever!". In this case it kind of enhanced the skewed world of the film. One team had a major technical problem - their whimsical little tale of ghosts haunting a park was still cute and entertaining. Major technical problems are a major problem in 48 hours - the only thing worse is a major team walk out - there are many tales of those as well.

Standouts for me were the two movies made by teenagers. The first, from team "Non Chalant", was a mock reality doco about teen romance where three young people were interviewed about their relationships and then the film crew caught their delusions on tape. For me one of the best performances of the night was Maddie Peters as the third teen who was more seriously deluded than the rest. The second teenage movie was "Another Bloody Romance Movie", made by a team from Diocesan College, who cashed in on their notoriety by crediting themselves as "those bloody Dio girls". They made a classic rom com, complete with final scene at a wedding chapel - with BLOOD. The opening scene was one of the most impressive gore fests I've ever seen on screen.

All in all a good night. Can't wait for the finals.

Boy - a deserved hit

I recently saw Boy. This New Zealand film has proven a huge hit. Deservedly.

New Zealand movies tend to be gloomy, portentious, political or depressing. Not Boy. Even though it's a movie set on the East Coast in a Maori community there is no politics on display and only a tangential note that these people are poor. And, let's face it, poverty is relative. At one point the kids (who have been left alone in the care of their 11 year old cousin for a week) complain that they're having crayfish for dinner again!

The film is laugh-out-loud funny at the beginning as Boy introduces us to his interesting life, but after the appearance of his immature and irresponsible father things become more ambiguous. On the face of it his dad should alleviate Boy's responsibility for the kids while his gran is away. But he proves to be a burden. At first Boy and his dad are great mates - his dad has the mental and emotional maturity of an 11 year old after all - but gradually and with great subtlety the film's director (Taika Waititi, who plays the dad) reveals Boy's disillusionment.

I have seen some of Taika Waititi's work before (although not Eagle vs Shark his first feature) and I was very pleasantly surprised by Boy. I was expecting something much less mature and well developed, or something much angrier and more political. The film invites comparisons with Whale Rider (it is set in an almost identical community and the young protagonist is in almost the same situation) but Whale Rider was very much about the demise of Maori culture and its revival, while Boy is much more personal about the particular relationships in this family which could almost be any family with a drop kick dad and a dead too young mother. Although I enjoyed Whale Rider, I think I prefer not to be sledge hammered by a message.

Another thing I enjoyed was that the ending was mildly reassuring. The dad and his sons had a measure of reconciliation, but we knew that Boy no longer hero worshipped him. There was no violent blood bath (Once were Warriors) and no contrived happy every after (Whale Rider). These were just people learning to get on. (BTW the three main performances are excellent, especially the two young actors playing the sons.)

A sign, to me, of a quality film maker - there is a character called "Weirdo" in this movie. In any other NZ movie he would have been sinister and/or dangerous. A pedophile at the very least. Here he is just a gentle mentor to Boy's troubled little brother.

Introducing Lankaren

Askar's sequel now has a title - Lankaren - and it is 58,000 words long so far. This is about half of it, I think. It is about what happens in Urkan as a result of the Battle of Lankaren (at the end of "Askar"). How do the various prophesies pan out and how long do Jena and Zarek remain living a happily bucolic lifestyle in Deridea? There are more deaths and quite a few romances but obviously I'm not going to give away details.

A genre book (in this case fantasy saga) is plot driven. Although it has believable characters, and I hope says something about the human condition, the plot is what drives it along. So the first thing I had to do when devising Askar's sequel was plot it quite carefully. Even so I often find I need something in a certain chapter and have to back track to a previous chapter to put it in place. I had this problem in Askar when Galen had to have access to a knife. I had a lot of trouble figuring out how he would actually get hold of it and had to create a scene where he could do this. It wasn't easy. (Was it successful?) So a lot of energy goes into the sheer mechanics of plot.

Also characters can get away on you. On the face of it this doesn't make any sense, after all the writer creates the characters and is surely in charge of what they do. But what can happen is that you invent a character and as you work with him through the plot you get to know him better and begin to understand that the thing you wanted him to do to forward the story he simply isn't able to do. If you force him to do it the book will lose credibility. Say, for example (and this is not in "Lankaren"), you have a character who you plan will murder another character but, as you work with him through the story, you begin to understand that he is not capable of murder and you cannot invent any scenario in which he would do it. You have to change your story into something else. Of course in a literary novel, where character is by far the most important ingredient, changes like this are what make the art. In a genre novel you have to deliver on the expectations of the genre.

This is my trouble at the moment. I have a lovely hero that I want to do something that he doesn't want to do. I'll figure it out, that's what writers do, but it makes for interesting times. (Writers live largely through their work, that's why they tend to be anti-social and a bit peculiar.)

I find myself on a constant quest for the "perfect place to write". Right now I have access to a vacant apartment and that's proving a great boon. Oh that I could have an apartment purely to write in all the time!

I don't care about Tiger's pants

I really don't. I sort of care he's the greatest golfer of all time, but I don't care how many women he's slept with. Why do we have to hear about it, read about it and see it on the media all the time? Not only is it kind of cruel to his wife and family, it's also polluting my life with something that's none of my business.

Likewise that Aussie criketer's girlfriend and her nudie photos. I'd never heard of either of them and cared less until the news started wittering on, and her stupidity and his embarassment were forced into my awareness. (I think her name's Lara Bingle, I've forgotten his, but then I barely know any NZ criketers' names, let alone any Aussies.)


There's lots of other stuff. They think we're really interested in Michelle Obama, so we're actually told more about her than about Bronagh Key (see, how many knew that was our PM's wife's name? Not that I want to know that much about her either). They think we care that Sandra Bullock's husband is a letch - and so that poor woman's misery is everywhere. Maybe they think being rich and famous means Sandra isn't hurt by everyone knowing her business?

And there's the creepy stuff. I don't need to know about a man who kept a girl in his backyard for 18 years and had two children with her in America. I certainly don't need to know about how her and her kids are doing now. I don't need to know about like creepy stuff in Europe. I really don't even need to know about that stuff in New Zealand, unless it presents a threat to me and mine.

You see all this rubbish, the sleaze, the filth and the murk (as well as the nonsense about lost kitties and brave doggies) is stealing time and attention from stuff that really matters. Stuff I feel really fuzzy about - like is the economy recovering? how much is global warming really going to cost me? why is the government doing x y and z? what are the arguments for and against? how is the super city going to work? etc etc. These things are all far more important but ... not so sexy, sleazy, exciting ... what have you. They are BORING. And heaven forbid we should be bored.