Cinema
Other Halves (15, selected cinemas)
The whole hog
Peter Ackroyd
It begins with an unhappy housewife, obviously as bored by affluence as people in films are always meant to be. Her husband is a chiropractor, which cannot help. 'He is progressive,' she tells her analyst. 'He says that sex is another form of communication.' Her appearance on the screen is succeeded by that of another desperate creature — a 16-year-old Polynesian who is New Zealand's version of the street arab. Despite his romantic Origins he is not in the least sentimental- ised, however; there is no mention here of indigenous cultures, alienation, or dis- advantaged minorities. He is simply a mugger, and a thief, with very few whole- some personal habits. The only concession he pays to his ancestors is to drape a string of long teeth around his neck — perhaps they are his grandmother's. But in every other respect he represents the norm, and within the first five minutes he has vomited over a policeman. Welcome to New Zea- land.
. As one might expect from its title, the film draws its theme from the relationship between the woman and the boy. They meet in a psychiatric hospital and, since he shares her frustration (as well as being the only non-white within reach) she is almost bound to take the metaphorical ribbons from her hair and go native. But at first she resists this temptation. She leaves the hospital and begins a trial separation from her husband: all this is actually very well done, and as an exercise in close psycholo- gical observation Other Halves is more astute than has been suggested elsewhere.
And, of course, eventually they become lovers in a radicalised version of South Pacific: it is a development you can see coming from a mile off, but it is one which is still as interesting as it is expected. It is hard enough to get a black and a white person in bed, even in the modern cinema, but here the distinction in colour is matched only by the difference in age. This is known as going the whole hog. Presum- ably this has something to do with the state of New Zealand itself which, despite its Presbyterian inheritance, seems to encour- age an assertive frankness about sex (and about everything else too) which is actually more refreshing than the blankness of English film sexuality. It gives the film a rough edge, but it also makes it rather more serious.
In any case this is an interesting rela- tionship, as relationships go; in particular both parties are running towards each other so quickly and from such different directions that it seems more than likely that they will miss each other or collide on impact. Mark Pilisi, as the Polynesian renegade, is all a bored housewife could hope for — surly, unappealing, almost dangerous. But he is also very funny, with the kind of nihilistic humour which from any other angle would not be amusing at all: 'You don't know anything,' he tells her. 'You're like the people on TV.' It is like watching someone banging their head against a wall and in that sense he is rather touching, at least for those who are still ready to be touched. Lisa Harrow is also very good as the distraught cradle-snatch- er, although her passivity in the face of circumstances is often too trying for words.
The differences between the couple are on occasions over-emphasised, and there are references to the 'savage' in man which some people might even construe as patro- nising. But really these cultural tit-bits only add to the drama: ethnology may not be everyone's idea of fun, but it certainly makes a change. Certainly those phallic sculptures are not wasted on the house- wife, who could probably now graduate in a school of advanced anthropology without having to do any more fieldwork. She is a very lucky woman.
Of course it all goes wrong, at least in the middle sections of the film when an audience's attention needs to be arrested. There are times when the misfortunes are laid on with too firm a hand, however, and Other Halves is given an excessively schematic shape. There are even moments when it edges towards parable: 'You're all the same,' the boy says (on a beach, appropriately enough, at twilight). 'You think you're so civilised. Some day you're going to have to answer for it.' This is rubbish, of course, especially since the Jeremiah in question is living quite happily off the same 'civilised' people whom he attacks. And yet there is just a suspicion that the film endorses his position. But it remains only a suspicion — at other times, it shows him engaged in various acts of sporadic violence which are not in the least self-congratulatory or symbolic. Other Halves lives up to its title by being in two minds about the characters whom it observes; but this makes it more, rather than less, interesting. It is a curiosity, if nothing else.
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