Film review: This Way of Life

Florian Habicht's Kaikohe Demolition and Land of the Long White Cloud, and Juliette Veber's Trouble is my Business, have set a benchmark over the last couple of years that equivalent budget documentaries from anywhere in the world would find hard to match.

Now you can add This Way of Life to that list of fine Kiwi films.

Shot over four years in and around the rural communities of the east coast, the film follows the precarious existence of the Ottley-Karena family as they raise their children as far away as possible from the noise and pollution that city kids take for granted.

Dad Peter has a life-long struggle to get out from under the shadow of his own step-father, while mum Colleen is the quiet centre holding the family together through some pretty remarkable travails. Raising horses, hunting, and philosophically going about the business of giving his kids a better childhood than he had; Peter is very much the star of the film. But it'll be Colleen and the six gorgeous kids that you find yourself thinking about after.

The film is maddeningly elusive about the exact nature of the falling out between Peter and his dad, and it may be that there is another, less flattering, story to be told, but This Way of Life still rings a succession of loud and true notes as it unfussily tells a story that really could only happen here. Bravo.

THIS WAY OF LIFE
(85 mins)
(exempt from classification)
Directed by Tom Burstyn.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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