May 07 2010
Reluctant Hero and Other Choice NZ On Screen Links
posted by Steven Shaw at 12:15 pm
Our picks this month from NZ On Screen – New Zealand’s online showcase of TV, film and music video, including Reluctant Hero, a behind the scenes documentary about war hero Corporal Bill “Willie” Apiata VC. There’s also footage from This is New Zealand — NZ’s promotional effort at the 1970 expo — and a 1971 National Film Unit documentary called Dustie, which looks at a day in the life of Wellington refuse collectors. Check them out below…
“When he pinned it on my chest it was one like of the heaviest things I’d ever carried, eh.” Reluctant Hero is a documentary following Corporal Bill “Willie” Apiata VC from the moment he was informed that he was to be a recipient of the Victoria Cross for New Zealand, through the press conference, awards ceremony, various homecomings to his unit HQ, family and iwi, and his decision to gift the medal to his unit and the country. It’s an emotional journey for Apiata, who handles the change in his life with grace and humility. Narrated by Temuera Morrison, with a reconstruction of the attack Apiata’s unit was under when he made a run for safety carrying his seriously injured comrade. Watch it here.
Dustie is a National Film Unit documentary about a day in the life of Wellington rubbish collectors in 1971. Fascinating to see these guys running around the back of properties with their rubbish sacks, although the quotes indicate that the residents were not so trusting: “You go up the side of the house and hear the keys scrabbling in the kitchen door to lock it. I don’t know what they think we’re going to do – most of the house owners don’t look too good themselves at that time of the morning.” Watch it here.
A great clip from the 1970 Expo film This is New Zealand, which was famously filmed on three cameras and projected as a three-screen extravaganza. It screened at Expo 70, in Osaka, Japan, before an estimated two million people and on its return home was seen by 350,000 more viewers. Restored in 2007 by Archives New Zealand and Park Road Post. Watch it here.