SLEEPING DOGS

New Zealand, 1977, 107 minutes, Colour.
Sam Neill, Ian Mune, Warren Oates.
Directed by Roger Donaldson.

New Zealand film production galvanises into action with this political thriller. It has many excellent sequences but becomes confusing and, with its social point of view ultimately tends to make gestures rather than points
through its complex plot. New Zealand becomes a fascist state and an individualist outsider is trapped with the political games, the aggressive military and the revolutionary guerrilla warfare. It is an arresting theme and uncomfortably plausible for us as well as for our Tasman neighbour in its political and economic resonances. Sam Neill is a sympathetic hero, Warren Oates does a guest role and all is attractively photographed. Director Roger Donaldson could make further
interesting films.

1. An interesting and entertaining thriller? New Zealand production? The quality of film-making - writing, photography, acting, special effects?

2. The significance of the title - "Let sleeping dogs lie"? Its reference to the plot and the themes? The song and its contribution to understanding the meaning?

3. The original novel was one of the '60s. The Vietnam setting? Why a belated film-making with application to the '70s? Does the Vietnam basis provide a means of interpretation of this fictional police state of the '70s and the future?

4. The credibility of the plot in terms of the world climate of politics of the '70s, economics and economic difficulties, the movement towards fascism? The film's documentary use of background to make this world climate credible? The use of the modern media and communications for this? Audience response to this at the time? The feelings for politics and economic difficulties? Future audiences estimating this and understanding the '70s?

5. How well developed was the structure of the film? For the dramatics? The presentation of Smith as hero, the television? Smith at home leading an ordinary life watching the media? The introduction of the Prime Minister, the oil situation and energy crisis? The introduction of assassinations? The transition to the island and the chase structure of the film, betrayal, prison? The themes of resistance and the obvious parallels to World War Two resistance stories? (And the evocation of Franz Kafka-like prisons with the torture and interrogations?) The background of the U.S. and its influence in the '70s? Smith and his being trapped? The chase structure of the film? The clear lines of the plot and the various complicated intricacies on that clear line? The possibilities for the audience of identifying with Smith?

6. The character of Smith? His name, ordinary man, an everyman for this political and social world? As a type, seeing him at home, his relationship with his family? The ordinary man in the street and his involvement in this particular world of politics and economics? A victim and persecuted? The importance of the island and his going to this as a refuge? His ability to go bush? The importance of his having ammunition and guns? The arrest breaking through this? Did his subsequent treatment change him or not?

7. Audience response to the prison sequences? The picture of prison, interrogation, torture? The personalities of the interrogators? The sinister control and conspiracy behind interrogation of prisoners? The melodramatics of the escape? The chase structure and its suspense, Smith at the farm and his experience there, at the motel? The girl? The Americans and their presence helping? The mercenaries and their mercenary attitude? Fighting,, relaxing at the motel? The commander? Killing and Smith involved in bloodshed and death?

8. The consequences of Smith's guilt and flight? For his wife? The flight? The helicopter pursuit to death?

9. The character of Bullen? His intensity? His role in the political situation? The riots? The bond between the two men? Hostility? Bullen's role, dramatics?

10. The portrait of Gloria? Seeing her in strange situations and trying to cope? Death?

11. The background of the political scope - the Prime Minister, the police and their arranging of the assassination? The large scale police pursuit and the combing of the hills? The violent confrontation?

12. The comparison with the American mercenaries, their style, destruction? The commander and his arrogance? Death?

13. The picture of the network of the Resistance and its credibility? Fear, undercover? The farmer woman and her property? The motel? The town, the milk bar? How well was the detail of this network presented?

14. The build-up to the final violence? The scope of the outdoor sequences? Bullen versus Smith? The police?

15. The film as a picture of the '70s, as a picture of a possible future, as giving a horrific vision of what could come in the late 20th. century world?