VIGIL

New Zealand, 1984, 90 minutes, Colour.
Penelope Stewart, Frank Whitten, Bill Kerr, Fiona Kaye, Gordon Shields.
Directed by Vincent Ward.

Vigil is a very sombre New Zealand film, set in the mountains, an isolated community, stark characters and stark relationships.

The film was written and directed by Vincent Ward, his first feature film. He was to go on to great success and awards with The Navigator: A Mediaeval Odyssey but made only a few films afterwards: Map of the Human Heart, What Dreams May Come, The River Queen. He contributed to the screenplay of Alien 3.

This film relies on atmosphere rather than a plot-driven story. The focus is very much on characters, especially a young girl, her mother, her grandfather. The scenery is beautiful, photographed by award-winning cinematographer Alun Bollinger.

1.The impact of the drama? New Zealand drama?

2.The creation of atmosphere, the countryside, the mountains and fog, the farm and the rain? Nature and the mysteries of nature? Rugged beauty, ugliness? Destruction? The details of farm life? Photography, stark and striking? Human characters seen against these locations? The variety of shots, heights and distance? The musical score?

3.The focus on time, the story as timeless? Human struggles? Humans, animals – with the touch of the modern with the car?

4.The title, the focus on Lisa and her nickname ‘Toss’? The balaclava and images of knighthood, the eagle, blooded and rites of passage? Chivalry, her emerging as a woman, images of knighthood, the religious overtones: a vigil?

5.Her life, the family, the different members, the work on the farm and their jobs, relationships, the ordinary course of life, death and change?

6.The portrait of Toss, a girl of twelve, relationship with her mother, grandfather, her father accompanying her? Lost in the fog, found? Deaths? Her running and her grief, the funeral? The religious background yet the mystery, nature, grief? Relating with her mother? The ballet, sex and observing? The stranger and hostility, her change? The relationship, the possible molestation? Her grandfather, the car, the collapse? The mine contraption? Her growing up? going? What happened to her? Her future?

7.The portrait of her father, his relationship with his daughter, the fall?

8.Her mother, her life of drudgery, relationship with her father, the death and the funeral? Hiring Ethan, strict, her care concerning Toss? The sheep? Her dominance, the sexual relationship, changing, going away?

9.The grandfather, his age, work, the mine? His love for Toss? Ethan’s arrival, the building? Collapse, the tractor? Grief?

10.Ethan as sinister, the hired hand, the separate quarters, his masculine presence, the mediaeval overtones, the work, his being bossed about, drinking, the relationship with Toss, the grandfather, the sexual encounter and the change? His leaving?

11.People in this New Zealand context? The overtones of gothic storytelling, elemental? New Zealand, the land, survival, people – and the symbolic nature of the characters, the landscapes and the story?