The stunning debut feature by director Daniel Joseph Borgman, The Weight of Elephants is one of those movies where pretty much every box is ticked. And it’s not just me that thinks so: at last year’s Rialto Channel New Zealand Film Awards it saw Molly Marlene Stensgaard take home a gong for best editor, as well as the film being nominated for a slew of others including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Screenplay… and the list goes on. It goes without saying that everyone involved did a bloody amazing job, and it is such a treat to have it showing on Rialto Channel tonight, Christmas Eve.
Borgman is a Kiwi who lives between Europe and the country he grew up in, New Zealand, and he has definitely forged a unique path as a filmmaker, making his films both here and in Europe. Thus the works he creates are influenced by the best elements of both environments and filmmaking histories, and he has been recognised for his unique work all around the world as a direct result. It’s a unique approach and it works, and it has done for quite a few years now.
His first film The Man and The Albatross premiered at ‘The Leopards of Tomorrow’ Competition at Locarno 2008, whilst his second film Lars and Peter screened In Competition at the Festival de Cannes in 2009. His next short film Berik was selected for Critics Week at Cannes 2010 and won the Grand Prix for ‘Best Short Film’, and was also nominated for the European Film Academy Award in 2011. To say he’s on the verge of something wonderful would be a vast understatement, and puts watching THE WEIGHT OF ELEPHANTS tonight even more in the category of ‘essential viewing’ in my book.
The movie was a co-venture between the New Zealand Film Commission, the Danish Film Institute and Film i Väst, with support from the Invercargill City Council and Southern Institute of Technology. It is the first unofficial co-production between the two countries and at its heart is the loneliness and cruelty of childhood and the impact of abandonment on one young, mesmerizing boy. An adaptation of Sonya Hartnett’s coming of-age novel, Of a Boy, it is moody, poetic and exquisitely shot in New Zealand’s South by Swedish director of photography, Sophia Olsson.
In the lead role is newcomer Demos Murphy, an absolute treasure of a find and a talent most definitely to be watched. He plays sensitive 11-year-old Adrian with aplomb, reflecting his character’s struggle with his fears and anxieties since the disappearance of three kids in his small town in every tiny but perfect gesture. When a mysterious family moves into a rundown house on his street, with three young children left unsupervised to gleefully run wild, he begins to fantasize that they might be the missing children and the tale unfolds from there.
I don’t want to give too much away so will stop there, but let’s just say that THE WEIGHT OF ELEPHANTS is one very special movie. Reviews at the time of its cinematic release praised the way it effortlessly combines a deeply felt connection to the sleepy suburban isolation of small town Aotearoa with a psychological approach so typical of much Danish cinema, but for me it’s this and so much more. To put it simply: tune in, sit back and enjoy.
Screening Times:
24/12/2014 08:30pm
28/12/2014 10:10pm
29/12/2014 10:55am