ARTICLES AND REVIEWS
'Kaikohe Demolition' and world premiere photographs on this page by Frank Habicht

KAIKOHE DEMOLITION HAS ENJOYED FESTIVAL SCREENINGS IN NEW ZEALAND, SYDNEY, MELBOURNE, BRAZIL, SINGAPORE, TOKYO, AND SANFRANCISCO.

NZ Listener July 24 2004
Review by Philip Matthews

This tender, highly enjoyable documentary plays like a labour of love about a labour of love: the young, gifted director Florian Habicht has returned to the Northland landscapes of last year's festival hit Woodenhead, only with something much straighter in mind. Well, relatively. Habicht's film documents a series of holiday-weekend demolition derbies - Easter, Mother's Day, Christmas -in Kaikohe, and besides some exciting mud-rubber-and-bent-metal footage, he also presents the unusual spectacle of his demolition drivers calming down in the town's hot pools. In this zone, the men seem to be at their least aggressive and most philosophical -we learn that one leading driver also organises anger management groups, as "I don't believe that people deserve to be beaten up".

Habicht broadens the picture in the second half to take in the town's socio-economic position - there are many here on the poverty line -but the film is most memorable for the unforced eccentricity or indigenous surrealism that is quickly becoming Habicht's mode: the busker who closes the film with a forlorn "White Christmas", the "sheriff stoner" car that is painted to look like a police car, the guy who adds tread to his tyres with a chainsaw...

Sunday Star Review
By KIRAN DASS22.11.2004

After last years fruity, expressionist fairytale lark Woodenhead, Auckland filmmaker Habicht returns with this unsentimental but wonderfully celebratory documentary about the northern township of Kaikohe, and offers an insight into some of the people who live there,
With endearing characters such as Ben Haretuku, discussing their life in near poverty, the local derby track, and their hopes and dreams, it would be too easy for this to turn into a mirthless, bleak kitchen sink study. Thankfully Habicht clearly loves his characters and in return they speak open and frankly.
It's refreshing to see that someone is finally willing to tell New Zealand stories to New Zealanders. Unlike the many weak local films before it, Kaikohe Demolition avoids all caricatures, cliches and banal stereo-types, and presents an honest, uncoloured representation of what the filmmaker sees. Clocking in at less than an hour, and with the almost fantastical scenery of the north, makes for magical viewing.

New Zealand International Film Festival 2004
by Bill Gosden

"Kaikohe made world news in 1991 when children there attacked Santa in the Christmas parade. It's not an easy image to dislodge, one of the locals admits ruefully, but if anything can do the trick it is Florian Habicht's empathetic, funny account of small-town life on the poverty line, as told by those living it. The only violence in this Kaikohe occurs at Demolition Derbys, which seem to coincide with every festive date on the calendar, including Mother's Day. It's no surprise that Habicht, who made a 'dump hand' the hero of last year's Woodenhead, can find the flamboyance and poetry in the spectacle of mobilised car-wreckage (he mostly spares us the noise). But what's most arresting about his film is his easy intimacy with the drivers. 'Putting a little more tread in the tyres' with a chainsaw, for example, they explain their sport, regale us with their exploits, and finally, relaxing in a hot mineral pool after a hard day at the track, speak with candour, laughter and amazing grace about life in general."





Habicht's new film and its stars impress Auckland audience
FRIDAY , 23 JULY 2004 The Chronicle by Keri Molloy

Florian Habicht's new film Kaikohe Demolition attracted a full house at the Auckland International Film Festival last weekend. The enthusiastic crowd at the 700 seater Sky City Theatre gave it the great reception it deserved and the Kaikohe contingent made the premiere a particularly sparkling and special occasion.

Three years in the making, Florian's low budget doco gives an insight into the lives of those hardy souls who take part in the spectacular Kaikohe demolition derby. It's all there - the love of cars and engines, the thrill of competition, the fun of a gigantic fairground-bumper-car arena. The cars are held together by rope, propped up by bits of four-by-two and painted up as works of art. The last car running is the winner.

The event takes place against a backdrop of rural Kaikohe and Ngawha where recreation is, perforce, cheap in dollar terms but where it is priceless in terms of pure belly-aching laughter and excitement. The generosity of spirit and capacity for fun shown by the stars of the show, none of them actors, cannot be bought anywhere, at any price.

Ben Haretuku, John Zielinski and Uncle Bimm, the Ratana Brass Band and others filmed in this heart warming, funny and inspiring film, travelled to Auckland for its premiere. For the Kaikohe bunch it was an 'enormous' occasion, they said. It was a huge success, also, for other Northlanders in the audience and it clearly went down a treat with city folk too.

Invited to speak after the screening, derby winner John Zielinski (a former New Zealand polocross player, who now gets his thrills at the Kaikohe Demolition), gave a hint of what it was like for a Kaikohe bloke in the city for the weekend: "It cost me more in parking than it does to buy a demolition car in Kaikohe!"

Uncle Bimm, a veteran derby enthusiast and a source of hilarious one liners in the film, admitted that he was now not fit enough to continue smashing cars but, he quipped, he is looking forward to Florian's next film, "Once Were Demolition Drivers."

Kaikohe Demolition has been picked as a highlight at the 2004 Auckland International Film Festival. It is a delight. See it if you can!

Salient Magazine
Film Review by Brannavan Gnanalingam

It is almost a cliche to state we don't know how lucky we are in New Zealand. Yet this wonderful and loving documentary somehow turns a demolition derby into a profound statement on the importance of life and what makes this place special. This may sound cheesy, but when coming from people who are struggling with poverty and have every reason to be pissed off about their situation, their celebration of life is eye opening and moving.

Kaikohe, a small town in Northland, gained notoriety in 1991 when a Santa was attacked in a Christmas parade. Kaikohe is also a place where there is a large amount of poverty and the associated social problems. Habicht (director of Woodenhead) says however, "all the locals were really amazing, you'd think it's hard out but we experienced the total opposite". While making a documentary on Northland (where he grew up), Habicht spotted a mention of a demolition derby in a local paper. Thinking it would be a good addition to the documentary, Habicht just "totally fell in love with it" that he decided to make it into a documentary in its own right.

The documentary introduces a number of interesting and humourous characters through candid interviews with the participants, who weren't afraid to muse on about life. Most revealing of all was Ben (who incidentally provided a car in Woodenhead for the kids to smash up), whose sage-like wisdom provides the core of the film.

There are some hilarious scenes such as when the characters put tread into their tyres...with chainsaws.

Habicht, who's currently putting on the finishing touches of Kaikohe Demolition and finishing his Northland documentary, hopes to get this on television and in international Film Festivals later. However, for this to happen, there needs to be a good response from its screenings at the Film Festivals around New Zealand. The moving and entertaining documentary deserves to be seen to a wider audience and is highly recommended.

Melbourne Film Festival 2004

The tiny New Zealand town of Kaikohe made world news in 1991 when a group of its children attacked Santa in the local Christmas parade. Florian Habicht's new documentary hopes to cleanse the bad reputation of the town by focusing on something more positive: the Kaikohe Demolition Derby.

Habicht was the eccentric mind behind MIFF 2003 discovery Woodenhead. This outlandish Freudian fairy tale for grown-ups left numerous audience members with troubling dreams for weeks and a similar unconventional sensibility is bought to Kaikohe Demolition. Told by the people directly involved, the documentary exposes the innocence and artistic beauty of a violent spectator sport.

Reclining in hot-spring baths or relaxing with the family, colourful characters such as the ever-cheerful Uncle Bimm passionately explain the reasons why they have become involved in this destructive automotive warfare. Seemingly tranquil and sedate folk are transformed into wily tacticians, warriors in steel chariots and revhead berserkers hell-bent on annihilating their opponents. And maybe enjoying a couple of coldies after the Derby.

A new documentary by intrepid New Zealand filmmaker Florian Habicht captures the gracefulness and poetry of demolition derbies. Ah, yes: there is a harsh, strangely lyrical beauty to be found at the speedway: the mangling impacts and hoicking engines; the expert hoons clustered 'round raised hoods; the lone girl standing at a wire mesh fence, solemnly licking an ice cream as she watches the carnage in the mud. Such is the beauty of Florian Habicht's documentary, Kaikohe Demolition.

A small, economically sluggish far-north town, Kaikohe drew worldwide attention in 1991 when a group of kids beat up Santa at the Christmas parade. But Habicht reveals a hardy, warm-hearted community, united by a passion for chaotic, thirty-car demolition smash-ups. Touchingly, there's also a shot of Santa being merrily welcomed by a gaggle of young children, suggesting past differences have been patched up. The derbies are held to coincide with pretty much any festive date, including Mothers' Day and Christmas. Habicht, who grew up in the nearby town of Keri Keri, befriended a group of derby drivers and their extended families for the documentary, which took an epic three years to make.

He first came across one of the central figures of Kaikohe Demolition, one John Zielinksi, a nuggety, formidable master of the local track, on the front page of a local newspaper. "He was like standing like on the roof of a car in some kind of pose or full-on salute."

Was Habicht tempted to grab a camera and go along for a ride in one of the derbies? It seems a logical first step, TEARAWAY reckons. He hoots with laughter. "Oh, man. If I wasn't such a scaredy cat, such a paranoid freak - [although] I'd probably be more paranoid about wrecking my camera than myself. "But I did get lots of offers [to race], people saying 'C'mon, ride with us!' And I always sort of chickened out last minute." Safely trackside Habicht was able to capture many intimate, funny moments with the drivers, who typically unwound after a hard day's racing with a lengthy soak in Kaikohe's hot mineral pools. And he also picked up some highly useful demolition pointers, such as how to use a chainsaw to add more tread to your tires; in addition, ramming boot-first is best (less likely to damage the precious radiator, eh).Ê "I like that it [the documentary] doesn't have a narrator telling you what to think," he says. "It lets the people up North talk for themselves."

Doin' it for love As is typical of many New Zealand films, Habicht produced the documentary on a tiny budget and with very limited resources. "Most of the film has been a real small team - for half the scenes it was just me and no-one else. For other scenes there was Chris Pryor doing filming as well and sometimes I had Jeffrey Holdaway on sound."

When Habicht finally showed the finished documentary to the Kaikohe locals, he says, "you wouldn't believe it, how stoked they were." Now he's fixing to have the film accepted in various international film fests.

Kaikohe Demolition is part of the wick-ud Telecom New Zealand International Film Festival. So make sure you go see it, y'all!

XTRA MSN Film Review July 17th 2004
by Matt Bostwick

Michael Moore eat your heart out! German immigrant Florian Habicht's engaging documentary Kaikohe Demolition could teach the current cause celebre of the doco world a thing or two.

Told by the people involved, Kaikohe Demolition exposes the innocence and artistic beauty of a violent spectator sport. And it's an absolute bloody corker.

For starters, the stars of Kaikohe Demolition are the locals themselves and not the filmmaker. Habicht has shunned the trite voice-over and presenter approach and lets the people - and the pictures - speak for themselves. The result is something incredibly refreshing. Compared with what passes for documentary making these days, the 28-year old Habicht is in a league of his own. Rather than detracting from the film, the lack of a narrative voice (other than the expertly edited interviews with derby devotees) enhances it. It feels like riding a bike without training wheels for the first time - a little bit harder at first, but a whole heap more fun.

The documentary features Kaikohe locals Ben Haretuku, John and Carmen Zielinski, and Uncle Bimm talking about Northland's most rock 'n' roll event - the Kaikohe Demolition Derby. It seems there's a derby meet for every occasion - including Mother's Day. Our heroes prepare by taking to old Valiants with sledgehammers (to get rid of the windscreen and toughen up the outsides), chainsaws (to add more grip to the tires) and spray paint (there's a prize for best-dressed car, you know). Derby day itself is a fiesta of smoke, mud, engine noise and smiles. Oh, and heaps of hot dogs. The rules are simple: don't go for the drivers' door. Other than that, there are no rules. Last one moving wins. Afterwards, contestants swap stories and enjoy a well-earned soak at the Nga Wha hot pools - a must-see attraction on any Northland sojourn and the choicest mud pools around.

The film is peppered with priceless moments: Uncle Bimm telling some young fellas that the old dunga they're riding in used to belong to his "great, great, great grandfather. Best car ever. It's been in the family for generations"; the eloquent Ben Haretuku pondering the art of derby driving and its impact on marital sexual relations; and the 40-something Uncle Bimm competing in the Santa Parade lolly scramble wearing his McDonalds uniform. Go Uncle!

The beautiful characters and breath-taking photography make Kaikohe Demolition a rich, compelling and delightful film. You'd do well to see it. i

Peter O'Donoghue Film Review
Gritsalute.com

Imagine thirty cars that look like something Mad Max would drive if he smoked pot and lightened up a little, a track so wet and filthy it could be the world's largest mud wrestling pit, and a style of driving through this awesome slop that looks something like puppies skidding sideways on lino. Take all of that, put it in slow motion and set it to a soundtrack of romantic cabaret music, and you've got the first major race scene in Florian Habicht's new documentary 'Kaikohe Demolition'.

Apart from the somewhat arthouse approach used in the scene described above, the film is a straight-ahead tale of one of Northland's most rock'n'roll events, as told by the people involved. And that's how it all starts - with the people involved, sitting in the steamy water of the Ngawha hot pools, where most of the interviews with the drivers take place. The setting kind of makes them look like sporting professionals; like Michael Schumacher being interviewed at a health spa after winning another Formula One. But none of these guys have won a thing - they've just slid around in the mud for a while and destroyed all their old vehicles in the process, copping a bit of whiplash to boot.

Kaikohe Demolition really is the ultimate homemade hoon fest, and by ten minutes into the film there doesn't have to be much petrol flowing in your veins for you to be getting pretty excited. With fantastic footage and a slow motion soundtrack, Habicht manages to capture the true artistic beauty in this slopping celebration of mud, metal and gasoline.

The behind the scenes footage shows us some of the preparation involved before the big day, and it's Kiwi Ingenuity with grunt. Sledgehammers, baseball bats and spray cans flesh out the usual selection of automotive tools, and I certainly never thought I'd see anyone use a chainsaw to improve the tread on their old tyres. You can imagine these guys sitting their grandchildren on their knees in a couple of decades, when things like demolition derbies have been outlawed as 'dangerous' or 'bad for the environmen'', and telling them ÔWhen I was a young fella, we used to do that ourselves... we used to smash the crap out of each other in our cars'. And if those grandkids don't believe them, now they're going to have the doco to prove it.

'Demolition' is not only a high speed trip into small town New Zealand - a place city-dwellers are visiting less and less - it's also a journey into the Maori community. For some white New Zealanders, Once Were Warriors and the News are about the only insights they've had into Maori people's back yards, and the drama of such insights may have left them feeling far removed from Maori life. What's different about Kaikohe Demolition is that it shows real people having real fun. It doesn't focus on the problems in Maori society; it focuses on the positive effects of getting together for a bit of organised chaos, and lets the social issues bubble up occasionally in interviews. The people are the narrators of this story, and the lack of a voice-over to guide us is both refreshing and common sense. This film is a celebration of the story-teller, and of the fact that they are out there in the world, not in the studio narrating from pre-written scripts.

There are overtones in some of the interviews that the derby is a way for young guys to vent their anger and boredom, and that there's no need to get aggro when you can slide at each other backwards and make metal mincemeat out of your cars. That's a pretty solid argument. There are a lot of ways to let off steam these days, and the pastimes vary with people's upbringing and affluence, but after watching Kaikohe Demolition, you might just decide that this looks like a hell of a lot more fun than jet skiing, yoga or a round of golf.





Big grins greet big-screen debut
The Northern Advocate, By Natasha Harris

Decked out in high-visibility clothes and crash helmet, Kaikohe man "Hitman'' Abraham Parangi would hear the cheers of his whanau as he raced his modified car around the town's speedway.
Hitman lived for demolition derby racing but a stroke forced him to give it up about a year ago.
Now his racing days are being relived through a film he appears in, called Kaikohe Demolition, being shown on the big screen in Auckland next weekend at the city's International Film Festival.
"I'm buzzing ... It's too much (to be on screen). I've never even seen myself on television before,'' Mr Parangi said.
Kaikohe Demolition is an 80-minute documentary following the antics of demolition derby racers Mr Parangi, "Ben'' Kitohi Haretuku and John Zielinski. It was directed and filmed by Paihia-raised independent filmmaker Florian Habicht over three-and-a-half years. Humour is subtle in the film, with drivers attacking their tyres with chainsaws to get more traction and Mr Parangi cracking jokes while driving a car full of people in one of the "prehistoric'' cars the drivers race.
Now an Auckland resident, Habicht was drawn to the idea of a documentary after seeing a picture of racer John Zielinski in a newspaper, holding a "winning pose'' on top of a car following a race win.
Habicht decided to get his digital camera out to the speedway and when he met Mr Parangi, Mr Haretuku and Mr Zielinski, he ditched his original idea of making a tourism documentary about Northland.
"The footage (of them) was priceless. It was mainly those shots showing their great personalities and their good rapport that made me do a film on demolition racing rather than a tourism film,'' Habicht said.
The former Kerikeri High School pupil said he loved filming in Northland because of the "feel of the landscape'', which he described as different to the rest of New Zealand. Speaking to the Northern Advocate at the Kaikohe Speedway, Mr Parangi and Mr Haretuku couldn't wait to "crack up'' at themselves on the screen and to "blob out in the casino''. The pair were all smiles as they talked about the fun of demolition derby racing, dispelling the typical aggressive nature of the activity that involves cars crashing into each other. "It's a family day out, it's more like a picnic. Everyone wants to see if you're all right (when they crash into each other) and at the end we're all friends,'' Mr Parangi said. The film will have its premiere at the Auckland International Film Festival on Sunday and will be shown at this month's Melbourne Film Festival. It will then be shown around New Zealand during various film festivals and Habicht hopes it will make it to television.

Dominion Post Film Review
by Alexander Bisley, July 2004

After In My Father's Den, Kaikohe Demolition is one of the highlights of the New Zealand work in this festival. Northland lad Florian Habicht (Woodenhead) returns home and documents Kaikohe's demolition derby and its animated, appealing participants. The scenes of the event itself, filmed in a way that captures its low-tech essence and authenticity, are fun, and refreshing in an age where car movies are all about 2 Fast 2 Furious-style special effects silliness. Kiwi ingenuity is seen in a hilarious scene where a bloke preps using a chainsaw to Òput a bit more tread in the old tyres." One car is emblazoned "Afganistan". Why brave the whiplash? "Even if I come away with a hamburger, I'm happy bro."

Kaikohe's drivers are as likeable as 2 Fast 2 Furious types are annoying. Away from the burnt sienna track, Habicht shrewdly interviews these good-natured, humorous men while they wind down at the "better than a bath" local hot springs. Particularly striking is Ben, a doorman, who is revealed as an unlikely sage, a Fred Òwe don't know how lucky we ar" Dagg for the twenty-first century. Ben's spirit, generosity and eloquence as he describes why life in New Zealand is so good are charming.

"The best day of my life!"
Northern News July 28 2004

That's how fledgling film-maker, Florian Habicht, described the recent world premiere of his film Kaikohe Demolition at Auckland's International Film Festival.
Florian, formerly of the Bay of Islands, said there was a big contingent of people from the Far North among the 700 who attended the screening at the Sky City Theatre.
He said he felt a huge sense of pride and whanau from the moment the Ratana Brass Band played its first bars to the credits at the end of the film.
"There was such a buzz in the whole room and so much laughter. The audience really engaged with the film and festival director Bill Gosden had tears in his eyes," Florian said.
Ben Haretuku, who starred in the film, along with "Uncle Bimm", John Zielinski and Carmen Zielinski, saw Kaikohe Demolition in its entirety for the first time at the festival.
He said Florian had done Kaikohe proud.
"He did us huge credit. He could have shown us in a very negative way if he chose to. He didn't take the piss out of us," Ben said.
John Zielinski said he was blown away by the film.
He said people came up to him afterwards and said it was the best film they had seen in years.
"We're forestry workers; we're not used to signing autographs," he said. Kaikohe Demolition screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival on Sunday and will show at the Wellington Film Festival tonight. Florian was optimistic the film would be shown on television, but said if it wasn't he would arrange a screening in Kaikohe.

 

 

Kaikohe Demolition 20.11.2004
Reviewed by PETER CALDER ( New Zealand Herald rating * * * *)

Berlin-born and Northland-raised Florian Habicht brings a refined sense of the bizarre to film-making, as the small but enthusiastic constituency for his debut feature Woodenhead would attest. That film, which involved circuses, accordions and a man who lived at the dump, wasn't to my taste. But his new production is a cracker - as Kiwi as No 8 wire and (therefore) as bizarre as anything German neo-expressionism could throw at us. The film focuses on the demolition derby of the title in the Northland town, which most people down south know as the place where Santa got attacked for his lollies. Habicht, however, digs - though given his unobtrusive style it's probably truer to say he sinks slowly - beneath the surface of Kaikohe life by just hanging out with the major stars of this mud-spattered motorsport event. With his collaborators, Habicht has crafted an extremely entertaining glimpse into a hidden world and fashioned a piece of pure Kiwiana. The derby takes up only a small part of the film. Mostly we watch as his colourful cast - principally Uncle Bimm, Ben Haretuku and John Zielinski - engage in preparations that include improving the tread on their tyres by gashing them with a chainsaw. Sublime.

 

A smashing time in Kaikohe 21.11.2004
By RUSSELL BAILLIE New Zealand Herald

Children in a scene from Kaikohe Demolition, a documentary by Florian Habicht Florian Habicht didn't write the dialogue in his latest film but he has a favourite line: "It may look a bit paku but it's lovely." The director laughs as he stretches out the last word in a fine impersonation of its original deliverer, Uncle Bimm, one of the many unforgettable hard cases that populate Habicht's documentary Kaikohe Demolition. He remembers the quip because he and his director of photography/editor Chris Pryor have been subtitling KD for overseas markets, including English ones where Ngapuhi inflections might baffle audiences. What's mystifying is how an hour-long study of the Northland town's folk - well, those ones who spend a fair bit of time down at the local demolition derby - can be so utterly charming. The tall Habicht's gangly enthusiasm and engaging manner probably helped. Oh, and that he's local. His family migrated from Berlin when he was 8 and he grew up in the Bay of Islands. He graduated from the Elam School of Fine Arts in 1998. He shot his previous film Woodenhead - his DIY "surreal Grimm musical fairytale" - in and around Kaikohe and he had thoughts of making a tourist documentary about the area to make some money. "I wanted the tourism doco to have a few parts where the tourist buses don't go. Have the real side of Northland in it." Only he became distracted by the colour, destruction and surreal possibilities of the Kaikohe Car Club's regular meets. Every couple of months he and his minimal crew would drive up at weekends to film the last rites of the decorated cars and yarn with the locals. "The only thing is the film took so long to make, every year I decided to come back and get more footage and after three years no one ever said it to me, but I think lots of them thought this film was never going to happen." The resulting film interweaves action from the track with interviews with the drivers as they hang out with their families, prepare for race day, or soak away any bruises at the Ngawha Springs hot pools while musing about life on and off track. Despite all the crunch factor of the automotive fight to the death, Habicht's film stands back from the action. He admits he was too scared to get into one of the cars with or without his digital video camera. The start of the film refers to the infamous incident when, during a Christmas Parade in the town years back, the kids took on Santa for his lollies before he could scramble them. Given the town's less than illustrious reputation, was he nervous about making fun of the place? "Before the film was ever shown and because I'm white and not Maori I was expecting some people to be like, 'What are you doing trying to represent us?"' But a substantial section of the town's population, complete with Ratana brass band, came to Auckland for its world premiere at the Film Festival earlier this year. "They were all really proud of how their town was represented and that it's got the Christmas parade in and Ngawha, they're sick of their town appearing on the news for murders." It also screened at festivals around the country and at the Melbourne Festival. Now it's getting a local cinematic release. Meanwhile Habicht is submitting it everywhere he can internationally and hopes the influential Sundance Film Festival might pick it up. He is preparing to attend the Maurits Binger Film Institute in Amsterdam next year where he's taking early drafts of his next project - "It's a true story like a biopic but it will seem like fantasy" - for development into a feature. Meanwhile, the Kaikohe Car Club will be still pranging in style. And the film that started life as a tourist doco might already be having just that effect. "I know that tourism has gone up not by big numbers but the locals have met people who have said they wanted to come and check out Kaikohe after seeing the film and that's only from the festival." * Kaikohe Demolition is screening at the Academy Cinema, Auckland, from Thursday.

Excerpt from Truth and Consequences, NZ Listner top films 2004 by Helene Wong

Part social document, part love-letter, part celebration of banging stuff up, this affectionate and subtly insightful look at one of our hardest-hit small towns is a gem, reminding city folks of the simple joys of community and showcasing the quality of a truly indigenous humour. Habicht's easy relations with his subjects pay off in their openness and unaffectedness in the presence of his camera.

 

Alexander Bisley DVD Review - THE DOMINION, Wellington

Kia kaha, Kaikohe Demolition is a startling film. It lyrically documents a charismatic, colourful, humorous group of Kaikohe residents, mainly Maori and materially poor, who participate in the Northland town's vigorous demolition darby. The crash action on the burnt sienna track is cool. More excitingly, there's a charming sense of brotherhood, community and warmth, in refreshing contrast to a certain greedy, individualistic sub- culture. Ben Harawira, a doorman on the poverty line, gives a spirited, generous, eloquent address on why life in New Zealand is so good. The demo men reclaim the great Kiwi lifestyle from those who dishonestly denigrate it. One strength is the outdoors, like the local Ngawha Springs. "Better than a bath...It may look patu but it's lovely." Kaikohe Demolition's also very funny; a terrific commentary track and scenes of the Auckland premiere are the highlights of the meaty DVD extras. Empathetic Ex- Northlander Florian Habicht (Woodenhead) laughs with his subjects. There's a hilarious scene where a bloke preps using a chainsaw to "put a bit more tread in the old tyres."Ê One car is emblazoned "Afganistan". Being of Nga Puhi descent, the film makes me sad I'm less in touch with my roots, as well as uplifted. With ignoramus Don Brash giving racism mainstream acceptability, Kaikohe Demolition is a timely reminder there's more to Maori culture than great golfers and rugby players. Ê

10/08/2005 By Claire Ongley XTRA DVD REVIEW, NEW ZEALAND

Kaikohe Demolition, the locally made documentary hit of last year's Telecom NZ International Film Festivals has been released on DVD. This delightful doco made the NZ Herald's Top 5 Docos of 2004 and The Listener's Top 10 Films of 2004. Set in the quiet and unassuming Northland town of Kaikohe, the film follows three Kiwi blokes (Uncle Bimm, Ben Haretuku and John 'Derby King' Zielinski), as they share their passion for smashing up old cars in the town's "most rock 'n roll event" - the Kaikohe Demolition Derby. The loveable Uncle Bimm, or 'Uncle' as his mates call him, is a salt-of-the earth kind of guy who enjoys a good yarn and doesn't let the opportunity to crack a joke pass him by. You can't help but fall in love with his infectious laugh and furry caterpillar eye brows. John and Ben look pretty rough on the outside, but turn out to be warm, loving family men and all round nice guys. Ben is a doorman (he doesn't like the term "bouncer") and facilitates anger management groups as he says, "I don't believe that people deserve to be beaten up". The town made world news in 1991 when a group of children attacked Santa Claus, but after watching this documentary you get a very different picture.

 

Kaikohe Demolition 04.08.05 By Ewan McDonald
Herald rating: * * * * * NEW ZEALAND HERALD DVD REVIEW

Call yourself a Kiwi? Can you answer "yes" to at least one of the following questions: (a) Been to the Opononi Axeman's Carnival at New Year? (b) Been to the Pirongia races on Boxing Day? (c) Know anyone who was born in Eketahuna? (d) Seen this movie? Okay, so (c) was a trick question because no one has been born in Eketahuna since my Aunty June quit as matron of the maternity ward and left town for the bright lights of Palmerston North. But (d) is the real deal. This is a documentary of rural New Zealand that captures and honours a way of life, a group of people, simple truths and family life - sure, at times dysfunctional - that many of us who live in Parnell or Ponsonby don't recognise, understand or acknowledge. Pity. These guys are real New Zealanders, and not the Mainland Cheese ad-makers' version. These guys are the ones behind that soundbite of, "That's my black jersey you're wearing ... " when you add that Billy T James giggle to every sentence. Florian Habicht's documentary focuses on three middle-aged demolition derby drivers - though, where I grew up, Shackleton Rd in Balmoral, we called 'em stock-cars - in Kaikohe. Now, so far as the people who live in Parnell or Ponsonby see it, not a lot happens in Kaikohe - apart from the derby and, as the publicity for this movie has pointed out, the 1991 Christmas parade where the kids attacked Santa. Those drivers are Uncle Bimm, Ben Haretuku and John Zielinski, and his wife, Carmen. If you answered "yes" to question (a) you'll know that these guys are some of the funniest fellows around. In their town they're superstars. Haretuku's wife is terrified he'll have an accident so she doesn't come down to the track. Ben, kicking back in Nga Wha hot springs: "If I could get her to come in the car with me just once, it'd do wonders for our sex life." Uncle Bimm tells the young fellas that his old dunga used to belong to his "great, great, great grandfather. Best car ever." So far as the car racing goes, the idea is that you find an old Valiant or Camira. Or a Falcon with recliner chairs. Maybe a Ford Escort ("Is that Uncle Phil driving that there?" "Did that get a warrant of fitness?") or a good-quality Hillman Hunter ("His owner's still looking for it."). Get a sledgehammer to lose the windscreen and re-shape the outer panels, a chainsaw to add grip to the tyres, and a can of spraypaint if you're into the best-dressed car contest. Once the race starts there's only one rule: finish first. No, sorry, two rules: don't hit the other guy in the driver's door. After that, it's just smoke, mud, engine noise, hot-dogs. Last one moving wins, and then everyone heads to Nga Wha to tell stories and soak. German-born but locally raised Habicht, who was 28 when he made when this feature, is a genius with the ability to capture our people and our scenarios in his low-budget, home-movie-style doco. He has enshrined quintessential New Zealand, even in the straight-out poverty of the North, in a way that only one film-maker, in my recollection, has done before. That fellow was Barry Barclay. His are not bad shoes for Habicht to fill. On the DVD is footage of more races, including the Christmas and Easter derbies with local commentary , and a behind-the-scenes feature. If you don't roll off the sofa when you watch this, or wish you were in the Opononi Hotel public bar with these salt-of-the-earth blokes, you can't call yourself a real Kiwi.

 

RURAL CORNERSTONE.
Kaikohe Demolition DVD Reviewed by John Spry, LUMIERE MAGAZINE

WHAT A HAPPY accident it appears Florian Habitcht's documentary Kaikohe Demolition was both for Kaikohe and the country at large. Originally slated as a tourism film intended for sale, as well as brokering some interest in a burgeoning career, Florian started and seemingly finished after filming the demolition derby in Kaikohe, Northland. He saw the potential, and with his own brand of narrative and thematic charm broadened the film into a mini-feature celebrated in theatres and on television. If you've seen Florian's previous film, (and if you haven't, check it out) the artful and fairytale-like Woodenhead (2003), much of the misc-en-scene will be familiar: the rural landscape; the state homes; the barbed wire fences; the backyard garage; the unique people that inhabit our country. This last point, of course, is more prevalent as the camera absorbs lives lived in relative obscurity except for the town in which they congregate, directly affecting the people they know and the way in which ancestors known and unknown are treated in a collective memory. This film focuses on the drivers and participants in a local demolition derby, as well as their unique stories and memories of the events leading up to and during the main event and centrepiece of the film. With New Zealand becoming more urbanized, rural life becoming less a way of life, and technology becoming increasingly relied upon itself a trend that seems to be driving the young from their backyards to their front living rooms by way of Playstations and DVDs it is a welcome reminder that not only do we need the rural areas, but there is an emotional cornerstone and an embrace to the 'outsider' that has been lost in larger urban areas (hello Auckland). Throughout, there are a variety of excellent scenes that via narrative, illustrate what kind of documentary we are watching and its unstated perceived aim. Unlike many recently produced high-profile documentaries, this does not center itself around the meanderings and multiple points of view of its author examples of which are anything by Michael Moore and Nick Broomfield. There is an absence of shock or exploitation of the subjects under scrutiny, and there is no need to strive to make a revelation that may rock the audience into some kind of action or particular way of thinking. There is little pretence within the text, and this explains why the interviewees would open up to the camera so honestly, especially in this age of pop culture 'reality' television that we are subjected to every night. There is no celebrity and no grand standing; rather, witness the film's best scenes that take place in hot pools, a kind of confessional to no one in particular. We as the viewers are invited into homes, cars and of course hot pools of everyday lives that reflect where we have come from in some way. An innocence exists within the form that once lost can never be truly fully regained or relived. The sounds that are contained within the structure of the film are as vital as the visual elements; they are so much part of the New Zealand consciousness, and in fact exist as a background static, revealed in certain scenes that touch on a naturalness as well as an artificial state created over the past hundred or so years. In one scene in particular towards the end of the film a static camera focused on a backyard we're presented with a typical New Zealand homemade clothes line, long grass (in need of a cut), and two wreck-like cars. We hear the barking of a dog, the music of insects in the heat and the unmistakable sound of a mower chewing through the dry underbrush. Overall the film operates well as a documentary on small town life with a concentrated focus on a defining event one that for many of the well known faces in the Kaikohe community serves to give them meaning and identification in the eyes of others and themselves. It also serves as a reminder to all about what has traditionally been (whether real or imagined) one of the origin points, or even the home, of working class New Zealand. The great people of New Zealand came from small towns: great All Blacks, explorers, writers and intellectuals. Or at least that is what we are led to believe. With this film, I almost believe that all good in New Zealand comes from the rural outpost; a romantic ideal that is slowly disappearing from the landscape. Of course, this is not true, and the location of Kaikohe to such a social and political hotbed as Waitangi does give a glimpse into a revolution that is cyclical in nature but exists in an artificial reality. Florian has touched upon these truths, especially in scenes involving the local hot pools and the interviews with the main characters conducted while bathing. There is more involvement and identification for us with the real lives in play. We see a man whose main employment is a doorman (not bouncer) but also helps men with anger management problems; another who sees himself as an elder (of sorts) that needs to be with his family instead of out on the town.

Best New Zealand Film (ever) - Kaikohe Demolition.
New Zealand Blog by Vonnagy.Thoughts on New Zealand from a Yankee expat
Sunday, October 16, 2005

Yeah, so movies are filmed in New Zealand (the piano, LOTR, Silvia, Last Samurai) but until now I have never seen a movie that truly captures what New Zealand is about.

You gotta check out this doco called 'Kaikohe Demolition '. I laughed till i almost cried (in a very good way, mind you). Its amazing of how true it captures the kiwi spirit - a real heart warmer. It'll make ye want to smash your subaru into thy neighbour's suv. Its choice bro! :thumbup:

Just make sure you turn on the subtitles, i've been here for 3 years and i can still can't undastind tha kiwispeak :lol:

 

What the Digital Allows: Two Recent Films from Florian Habicht
By Jo Smith
ILLUSIONS MAGAZINE, Number 38 Winter 2006.

Introduction
As many film commentators have noted, digital technologies have opened up new avenues of creative production, distribution and consumption and pose questions to conventional approaches to film studies.(1) Digital video cameras and easy-to-access editing software have enabled the emergence of a lo-fi film aesthetic that, as in the case of the Dogma ‘95 group or Jonathan Caouette’s bio-documentary Tarnation (2004), has revitalized the language of cinema. Digital streaming technologies, Internet marketing techniques and DVD packaging also allow filmmakers greater creative control over their work and their auteur brand and can result in an independent form of cinema that challenges prevailing orthodoxies.

Within the context of Aotearoa/New Zealand, the rhetoric surrounding digital technologies is oftentimes caught up within nationalistic discourses that celebrate the New Zealand ‘brand’ on a world stage (witness the celebratory excesses surrounding Weta Workshops and Peter Jackson). The risk of wrapping the concept of kiwi ingenuity around the promises of new technologies is an intoxicating idea for those who seek to identify the quintessential differences of a national product to sell to an international market. At a more local level, the availability of digital recording and post-production technologies has spawned the lo-fi aesthetic of the Aro Valley filmmakers and Gregory King, who have produced visions of every-day life unhinged from the commercial imperatives of mainstream New Zealand feature film production.(2) The accessibility of the Internet also allows emerging and low budget film producers to access a wide range of potential consumers. Recent initiatives by the New Zealand Film Commission to fund websites that promote emerging filmmakers and their product internationally must also be counted as part of the digital “revolution” shaping contemporary film culture. In addition, DVD formatting and the range of special features, additional footage and commentary that the DVD enables, promises to place pressure on theatrical modes of distribution and exhibition in years to come (perhaps foreshadowed in recent clamp-downs on DVD piracy).

Filmmakers in Aotearoa/New Zealand can use these low cost production and distribution methods to bypass national funding institutions and gain an audience eager for visions of the everyday uncluttered by pre-conceived notions of what might count as representative of a nation. Questions can be framed as follows: is digital filmmaking able to pose a challenge to the national orthodoxies (commercial and creative) underpinning government funded film initiatives? What new visions of New Zealand society and what fresh approaches to filmmaking do digital technologies enable? Or, given that the New Zealand film industry has harnessed its orthodox notion of kiwi ingenuity to the potential held by digital technologies, do discussions of digital technologies (and the films produced with these technologies) simply replicate and proliferate nationalist discourses? Finally, is there a balance to be found between these options? Can digital production, distribution and consumption function within the constraints of the national frame while placing pressure on these frameworks to urge its audience to revisit the assumptions that they have about what are national orthodoxies?

The work of Florian Habicht demonstrates this final option most convincingly in his dual ability to attract government funding to produce highly original cinematic depictions of the landscapes and people of Aotearoa/New Zealand. With a German background and childhood roots in Northland, Habicht is an odd mix of influences. His use of digital technologies not only produces an original cinema that blurs fact and fiction, reality and imagination, but it also expresses a collective vision that captures a community of interests outside of the norms of mainstream New Zealand society.

DVD formatting and the vaudeville roots of cinema
Trained by the Intermedia programme of the University of Auckland’s Elam Art School, Habicht’s work blends aspects of film, painting, sound and music. His first digital feature film Woodenhead (2003) is a multimedia affair that echoes the vaudeville roots of cinema even as it utilises the ostensibly “new” technologies of digital cameras and DVD formatting. As a filmmaker based in New Zealand, Habicht’s work nonetheless links to the international shifts in film culture engendered by digital technologies, where film practices form increasingly networked relationships to other media formats. In the field of film studies Toby Miller argues that contemporary cinematic modes of production and consumption have returned us to the early days of cinema when short reels were screened between song and dance routines, lectures and magical tricks. In Global Hollywood Miller notes “the early history of film as part of the vaudeville bill is being reprised. The moving image is again part of a multi-form network of entertainment, via CD-ROMs, computer games, the Web, DVDs and multiplexes.”(3) Miller reminds us that the promises of new powers and new effects attached to digital cinematic technologies must be situated within the larger history of technological development. Miller also draws our attention to the mixed history of cinema (its mongrel roots if you will) where commerce and creativity combine to produce sounds and images that express the larger political economy out of which they emerge. In the case of Florian Habicht’s film productions, he takes the concept of “multi-form network” to its limits in his attention to the production and packaging of his works and in the aesthetic of Woodenhead. The additional storage space enabled by DVD technologies allows Habicht to showcase the cast and characters behind his feature film. The Internet site that hosts his product enables Habicht to promote his back catalogue as well as pursue his penchant for the aesthetic tradition of vaudeville entertainment. Woodenhead is itself a cinematic event in the vaudeville tradition (as much a musical as it is a reworking of European fairy tales), which exploits the multi-form network entertainment engendered by new technologies to reinvent earlier forms of popular culture.

Billed as a “grimm musical fairy tale”, Woodenhead premiered in the Auckland International Film Festival in 2003 with much of the pre-screening hype generated by word-of-mouth and an artful poster campaign. The film is notable for the out-of-sync sound and image relationship due to the sound track having been recorded prior to filming the live action. This production method produces a dream-like cinematic world where sound and image interact in an almost hallucinogenic fashion. Shot on digital video and then de-interlaced and de-saturated to give it a celluloid quality, the final black and white footage depicts a New Zealand landscape with a fantastical feel suitable to the fairytale narrative that unfolds. The plot involves an innocent dump hand (Gert), and his mission to guide the dump boss’s daughter (Plum) to her wedding. Even though Gert has explicit instructions not to touch her, a malevolent character working for Plum’s father intervenes in his mission and Gert and Plum have sex. A strongman, who has escaped from a traveling circus, then abducts Plum. Gert saves Plum, who then saves Gert (by agreeing to marry her father’s henchman). Gert then returns to the dump. Shot on a budget of $30,000 (with $25,000 from Creative New Zealand’s Screen Innovation Production Fund), additional funding from the New Zealand Film Commission enabled Habicht to produce a website that continues the aesthetic design of the film, which also carries over into the DVD packaging and poster campaign (designed by Teresa Peters). The website (www.picturesforanna.com) hosts a variety of materials on both Woodenhead and Kaikohe Demolition and includes film reviews, DVD sales information, news updates (including information on how you can add your vote to the user ratings of Kaikohe Demolition on the International Movie Database site). In terms of disseminating and profiling his works the website goes far in maintaining and proliferating the artistic presence of Habicht and his collaborators.

From film to website to DVD and poster, every media format is informed by a “variety show” styled bill of attractions that directly connects new technologies with an historical aesthetic that references earlier forms of popular culture. In the instance of the website’s opening page a prominent black and white photo of a tattooed woman dominates the page, making reference to nineteenth century visual culture by featuring a character most often found in a traveling sideshow or carnival. This website illustration echoes the oddball circus characters that feature in the film itself as well as the quirky characters in Habicht’s earlier works (most significantly, eccentric musical cult hero Killer Ray). This sideshow aesthetic and these characters are indicative of Habicht’s recurring obsession with the margins of society. As partner and collaborator Teresa Peters puts it, “Florian likes to celebrate the quirks of humanity […] So many people don’t read that as a language, but his films are full of that. Documenting craziness or idiosyncrasies.”(4) The special features of the DVD version of Woodenhead enable Habicht to pursue his love of the odd and uniquely talented as well as extend his interest in the multi-act format of vaudeville.

When buying the DVD version of Woodenhead consumers get the standard “behind the scenes” documentary, trailer, music video and director’s commentary along with more novel additional features. The menu page of the DVD is again in the style of a circus bill of attractions and features collages of black and white images where film characters’ faces appear attached to bodies other than their own. The menu page contains special feature options that include Habicht’s earlier short Liebestraume (featuring out-of-sync sound and image and dreamscapes reminiscent of early David Lynch). The DVD also includes footage of Killer Ray in Thailand, stills and artwork by Habicht and Peters, the short film “Horoscopes with Lutz” which features the voice of Woodenhead’s radio presenter and Woodenhead lead Nicholas Butler. The menu option “Circus Acts” is an explicit reference to the variety of performances showcased on the DVD and this option includes dance performances and a music video that builds on the cinematic world conjured up by Woodenhead (albeit in colour this time) and which feature Woodenhead’s choreographer and Woodenhead musicians. The consumer is thus presented with a range of media content and a colorful cast of characters that demonstrate the collective efforts of the Woodenhead team. Through a combined viewing of the DVD extras, Habicht appears as cheerful ringleader to an otherwise chaotic mix of larger-than-life characters dedicated to the art of creative expression. While named “Florian Habicht’s grimm musical fairy tale” on the film’s artwork, the DVD’s content clearly demonstrates the collective nature of Woodenhead’s world. Rather than approaching Florian Habicht as an auteur, the formatting of the DVD suggests that one might consider the name Florian Habicht as an assemblage of multiple personalities and personae, an assemblage that perhaps fulfils the popular investment of a democratic spirit that informs the rhetoric surrounding digital technologies.

Digicams, DVDs and cinematic democracy
In interviews Habicht has acknowledged various sources that influence Woodenhead and these include the German magic realism of The Tin Drum (Volker Schlondorff, 1980) and Lars von Trier’s digicam musical Dancer in the Dark (2000). Von Trier is a particularly important reference to consider in relation to Habicht if the latter is indeed, as Onfilm claims Habicht to be, “NZ’s poster boy for indie digi filmmaking.”(5) In a more international context von Trier and his Danish colleague Thomas Vinterberg remain important pioneers of digital independent cinema, launching the Dogma ‘95 “Vows of Chastity” that advocated a stripped-back production concept. The manifesto offered a ten-point plan that “dictates the use of handheld camera and location shooting, and prohibits production design, props, soundtrack scores, optical work, genre storylines […] and onscreen directorial credit.”(6) Habicht’s film in no way adheres to the Dogma manifesto, yet his filmmaking process and the advantages he takes of DVD and web technologies chime with von Trier’s commitment to the idea that digital technologies can revitalize the jaded cinema of the mainstream, as well as democratise the filmmaking process.

The last “command” in the Dogma ‘95 manifesto accentuates the collective nature of filmmaking in its decrees that the director must not be credited. Von Trier and Vinterberg (along with many others) consider the concept of the auteur a product of bourgeois romanticism. Critiquing the French New Wave for their reliance on individual films to contest bourgeois cinema, the manifesto states:

The anti-bourgeois cinema itself became bourgeois, because the foundations upon which its theories were based was the bourgeois perception of art. The auteur concept was bourgeois romanticism from the very start and thereby ... false! To DOGME 95, cinema is not individual! Today a technological storm is raging, the result of which will be the ultimate democratisation of the cinema.(7)

With a rhetorical style that echoes the manifestos of earlier enthusiasts of cinema Dziga Vertov and his Kinoks, Dogma ‘95 credits digital video with the powers of providing greater access to creative expression for those who might otherwise be excluded from the expensive art of celluloid filmmaking. This greater accessibility would henceforth dethrone the prestige and privileges attached to the figure of the auteur. Or so the rhetoric surrounding digital technologies would suggest. However, one must be cautious of the utopic tone of von Trier’s and Vinterberg’s manifesto (allegedly written in 25 minutes with frequent bursts of laughter) at the same time as acknowledge that the doxy of Dogma ‘95 functions as a provocation to push the boundaries of film production processes.(8) The constraints that the “Vows of Chastity” place on the filmmaker act as productive limits in order to forge new visions of cinema. The suggestion that the “technological storm” that is digital innovation can democratise cinema must also be approached as perhaps an ideal and yet provocative call to arms to filmmakers and film viewers alike. In the case of Habicht’s filmmaking to date, it is tempting to make the case that while he in no way attempts to make Dogma films, his digicam process, his repertory approach to acting and his attention to DVD formatting echo the democratising spirit that Dogma ‘95 sought to imbue digital technologies with.

The special features of the DVD version of Woodenhead highlight Habicht’s production techniques as collaborative processes. Habicht’s core collaborators include Teresa Peters (art director), Marc Chesterman (music and co-sound design), Chris Pryor (DOP and co-editor) and Jeffrey Holdaway (sound engineer). The DVD’s long winded “making of” documentary highlights these contributors and delves into the process of recording the audio script prior to filming live action as well as interviews with most of the cast and crew. As such, the extra features of the Woodenhead DVD documents a kind of community of creative individuals who are organized by Habicht into producing a cinematic world never before seen in New Zealand filmmaking practices. Habicht plans to use this same core group for his pending documentary production Land of the Long White Cloud(9) and Chesterman, Pryor and Holdaway feature in the second film completed by Habicht, the documentary Kaikohe Demolition (2004), a film that depicts a different kind of community than that of Woodenhead’s world while still maintaining a recognisable “Habicht” vision. Made in the space of three years, Kaikohe Demolition documents a small Northland town that became notorious when its children attacked a Santa at the Christmas parade when he ran out of sweets. The documentary provides a counterview of this lower socio-economic population (primarily Maori) by focusing on the community spirit behind the demolition derby car club that meets frequently to compete for prize money. The film makes compelling viewing due to the charismatic figures of Demo men Ben Haretuku, “Uncle” Bimm and John Zielinski and the poetic depiction of demolition cars moving in tune with a haunting soundtrack.

Produced on a budget of $7,500 (again, with the aid of Creative New Zealand’s Screen Innovation Production Fund), Kaikohe manages to turn economic constraints into aesthetic choices through the use of digital technologies. The discrete digital filming technologies used by the two-man film crew generate an atmosphere of intimacy that could also be attributed to a shared appreciation for machinery and technology. Habicht notes in one interview, “we were just boys with our toys and so were the Kaikohe Demo men!”(10) While this may suggest the potential for a celebratory take on masculinity and machinery (as well as risk a romanticised depiction of life on the poverty line), the film manages to produce images of spectacular automotive action and car-men culture at the same time as gesture to the larger socio-economic context out of which man and machine come together. This attention to context is also continued in the DVD version of the film, which includes coverage of the premier screening of Kaikohe at the Auckland International Film Festival and voice-over commentary from participants that add an additional layer of intimacy to an already intimate feature film.

In an interview featured on the DVD version of Kaikohe, Habicht admits that he never really knew what kind of film he had made until he attended the film’s premiere, suggesting that the reception of the film was as much a creative act as the making of the film itself. The documentary aesthetic Habicht deploys, along with the DVD extra features that promote the film as a community initiative, produces a participatory style of filmmaking that is then captured in the footage of the film’s premiere. The kind of film that Habicht has made is one where the participants hold centre stage and where the hand of the auteur is simply another tool for the participants to use. This is demonstrated in premiere footage when Habicht makes a brief speech and then quickly hands over control to two of his key participants, John and Uncle Bimm, who introduce other members of the demolition club. In this live performance the participants are the focus while Habicht fades into the background, a characteristic also of the documentary aesthetic deployed where Habicht chooses direct-to-camera address for the participants and avoids the voice-over method.

The participatory form of filmmaking that the DVD special features enable provides a refreshing approach to the documentary tradition and allows Habicht to maintain a role as a mediator between the camera technology, the members of the Kaikohe Car Club and the implicit audience “to come” that forms part of any creative process. In addition to the footage of the film’s premiere, Habicht also takes a backseat in the DVD commentary track accompanying the documentary, which instead features Ben, Uncle Bimm and John (and the occasional quip from Habicht) and adds another layer of information or observation to the live action footage. These commentaries extend and upgrade the initial observations on life in Kaikohe at the same time as providing a commentary on what it is like to be caught onscreen. In foregrounding the demo car club members, Habicht has created a film that acts as a gift to the community from which it emerged and is a treasured viewing experience for its national and international audiences. In doing so, Habicht manages to produce a reverse-shot of that “white neurotic industry” that Merata Mita defined Pakeha cinema as in her landmark essay “The Soul and the Image”(11) Where Mita saw films such as An Angel At My Table and Smash Palace as demonstrating an industry obsessed with making films about white men and women at odds with their environment, their country, or themselves, Kaikohe Demolition celebrates the community spirit and the creative energies of a small town while gesturing to the larger socio-economic conditions facing its members. This is cinema deeply embedded in the environment and the people of Kaikohe, an embedded-ness that comes from the digital technologies used to produce it. Perhaps, in these techniques, Habicht (understood as an assemblage of community, technology and filmmaker) achieves a kind of democratic spirit that decentres prevailing national orthodoxies.

Digicams, DVDs and cinematic democracy
Commenting on the freedom from the tyranny of New Zealand national cinema that Woodenhead provides, Phillip Matthews writes:

In dreaming his European images and stories into an empty, gently melancholy New Zealand landscape, Habicht has done something else as well, something he may not have anticipated: he has somehow removed the angst of New Zealand self-consciousness. Ever since New Zealand's arts came of age – sometime after the middle of the 20th century – the nation's artistic output has been anxiously examined and re-examined for what it “says about New Zealand”(12)

Matthews’s observations strike at the heart of the mongrel roots of cinema where creative energies and economic constraints consistently inform one another, leading to national cinemas that are anxious to identify a brand rather than express a variety of ways of being in the world. With a funding regime that highlights experimental works freed from the constraints of commercial imperatives (SIPF), and through the use of cheap and accessible digital technologies that can bring these creative energies to life, Habicht has sidestepped the naval gazing tendencies of a national cinema while still remaining connected to the circumstances out of which his filmmaking emerges. This technique is particularly effective in Kaikohe Demolition.

While the recent NZFC funded feature film In My Father’s Den (2004) revisits the trope of “unease” introduced in Sam Neill’s and Judy Rymer’s Cinema of Unease (1995), Habicht’s Kaikohe Demolition (2004) goes some way to decentre this tradition. If, as Duncan Petrie defines it, Neil and Rymer’s film “foregrounds a history marked by social conformity, Puritanism, fear, insanity and violence”(13), Kaikohe Demolition foregrounds the possibilities of an affirmative approach to life in the face of social inequities. As a film that documents a primarily Maori community, Habicht uses an unobtrusive filming style to capture the spectacular car collisions of the Kaikohe Demolition Derby and, more importantly, allows the men (and women) of a small town in Northland to express their exuberance for life.

The film begins with a black screen over which the sound of a karanga welcomes the viewer. Editing then fades into one of the signature landscape shots of Northland that Habicht introduced us to in Woodenhead. This time landscape shots include the Nga Wha Hot Pools and the bubbling sound of the springs is overlaid with one of the recurring guitar chords that punctuate the landscape shots and narrative transitions of the film. This first guitar chord sequence signals the arrival of a group of young men climbing down the hill to enter an iron-clad building. As the motley crew enters, they pass an elderly man dressed in a bathing suit, looking into the distance. The bathing-suited fellow appears out of place in this shot as the identity of the building, as a bathing area, has not yet been made clear. No one acknowledges his presence (an action notable for a film set in a small town in the North Island), and his presence in the landscape demonstrates the surreal sense of humour and fascination with the odd and the elderly that Habicht introduced audiences to in his earlier work (such as Liebestraume which features his father Frank Habicht). Moments such as these indicate the blend of reality and fiction that characterizes Habicht’s filmmaking, and in Kaikohe this blend lends a touch of the remarkable to the banalities of the everyday and challenges the national orthodoxy of keeping truth and fiction separate.(14)

According to Habicht, shooting the documentary on digital video enabled him to use the reality-effects of video to disguise the more fantastical elements of the documentary. When discussing his next venture Habicht notes:

I guess Land of the Long White Cloud will be a very subjective documentary. We want to capture the essence of New Zealand life, but in a Florian Habicht kind of way. This will involve consistently mixing reality with fantasy and often blurring the two. People don’t realize how much fantasy is in Kaikohe Demolition! (15)

A “Florian Habicht kind of way” means that Habicht will draw upon the skills of his Woodenhead collaborators for his new project and that he will pursue an aesthetic that consistently asks its audience to suspend prevailing notions of what constitutes reality. Kaikohe Demolition continues this Habicht style in the striking juxtaposition of demo race footage, where fantasies reign supreme, and direct-to-camera conversations, that draw from the reality-effects of documentary.

While interviews with demo men in the Hot Pools clearly mark the film within the documentary genre, initial scenes of demolition racing have a post-apocalyptic and otherworldly quality to them. In one of the first sequences to feature racing scenes, windowless and battered demo cars crawl around a muddy track and are juxtaposed to footage of John and Uncle in a demo-ready Ford Holden Camira inviting the film crew to have a “blat” around the track. The sequence then transitions into striking slow motion footage of multicolored demo cars moving in a perpetual circle or sliding transversally across the muddied track. Accompanying this footage is a dream-like sound track featuring female vocals (Po Roa aka Andrea Tunks). The sampled sound of a bogun car horn morphs and entwines itself with the background brass instrumentation and vocals, turning the signature sounds of petrol head culture into an artistic expression with otherworldly qualities. This sound track (Chesterman and Habicht wrote the song for this sequence), coupled with footage of colliding cars and steaming radiators, allows the audience to invest more poetic sensibilities into the scenes of automotive violence. The final racing sequence of the film is a more ferocious affair and is filmed in real time accompanied by a rock music track whose lyrics declare, “I can do anything that I want”. The car sequences thus become the arena for fantastical investments on the part of the demo car participants as well as the film viewer, while the interview sequences help to construct the larger socio-cultural conditions out of which these activities emerge.

Ben Haretuku provides the most philosophical commentary on life in Kaikohe, the negative connotations attached to the town (and the term “bouncer”) and the pleasures of the demolition derby. After a sequence involving John and Uncle using a chainsaw to retread a demo car’s tyre, shots of the Kaikohe landscape and an impending storm function to underscore the rural setting of the township. These shots include the darkening skies over an empty football field, an abandoned car sitting peacefully in the verdant green grass, a dead cow floating in a creek and the corrugated cladding of the Nga Wha Hot Pools. We then meet Ben in a bubbling hot pool where he introduces himself and tries to explain to the film crew the pleasure he derives from competing in races. His initial conversation revolves around derby culture but in subsequent interviews he touches on his job as a doorman, his leadership of an anger management group, the poverty of the township and the affluence of the surrounding Bay of Islands area (including Keri Keri, Paihia and Waitangi). Ben is also the character who retells the story of the attack on Santa Claus by Kaikohe kids in 1991. In keeping with the counter narrative that the film presents of a community-minded Kaikohe, Ben explains how the joys of his simple life in Northland (“Kaikohe is the centre of everything”) outweigh the adventures of his overseas experiences. Given the charismatic screen presence of Ben, the enthusiasm and joy of Uncle Bimm and John, and the footage of a community joined together in the pleasures of Derby Day, the film does much to alleviate the negative stereotypes surrounding the town (and demolition derby culture). To underscore this counter narrative, the documentary ends with a Christmas parade and shots of Kaikohe children and Santa Claus on a beach.

Kaikohe Demolition screened on national television in October 2004, fulfilling a promise made by Habicht to his cast that they would be on television. Each medium of release (theatrical, televisual and DVD) has inspired a warm reception from the audience who appreciate that this is a story told by insiders of demolition car racing culture. Yet it is the DVD version, with its capacity for presenting extended footage and including voice-over commentaries by the cast that highlights the collective nature of the production process. The coverage of the Kaikohe premiere most tellingly demonstrates how filmmaking practices can form synergistic relationships with the community that a film seeks to depict. The commentary tracks (at times featuring candid remarks from the cast about their onscreen representations, at other times fleshing out the details of demolition techniques) extend the participatory powers of Ben, Uncle and John, adding another layer of intimacy to the film. The blend of fantasy and reality (enabled by digital video formatting) offers the viewer an invigorated approach to small town New Zealand, free of cliché and affirmative without becoming overly celebratory. By focusing on a community event and the charismatic individuals who live there, Kaikohe provides a candid and poetic depiction of a lower socio-economic region of New Zealand rich in community spirit.

As a filmmaker with an eye to the possibilities of what digital technologies can allow, Habicht has produced two feature films that capture the creative possibilities that the rhetoric surrounding new media consistently proclaim. Not only that, Habicht’s awareness of the multi-form nature of contemporary entertainment highlights the conditions of contemporary cinematic production. The special features of the DVD versions of his films draw our attention to the larger political economy out of which these films emerge. These low-budget productions pose a potentially political challenge to the orthodoxies of State-funded cinema in their potential to present the off-screen space of the national imaginary (a Germanic New Zealand landscape in the case of Woodenhead and an affirmative depiction of small-town New Zealand in the case of Kaikohe Demolition). Working within a community of creative people (be they Woodenhead’s or demo men), Habicht’s digital cinema demonstrates how one can make cinema in New Zealand that is not obsessed with defining the nature of this place but which is concerned with affirming the potential life worlds that exist within the everyday of Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Metro Magazine, Pulp, Staple and Real Groove reviews/ articles coming soon!