“My friend and I tried to explain the New Zealand-style of comedy as a comedy of the mundane,” Waititi says of his own relationship with humour. “It’s so boring where we come from that you have to kind of find the funniness in boring stuff. That's why we'll often run scenes way too long until things get really not funny, and then they become funny again. I feel like a lot of what we do is based on just observing stuff that most people would find really boring or not even worth exploring for comedy.” (Independent interview.)
In this he has a nice eye for location, and moves things along cinematically. The end chase is nuts, but it's all very sweet and charming. Only - never kill the dog. Honestly, people just don't listen.
With additional writing from Tearepa Kahi, but based on Barry Crump's semi-autobiographical 'Wild Pork and Watercress', and this extract shows you the dry mood in its original:
"My mother used to say that everything would be all right, and we pretended along like that, but less than a year later I was back in a social welfare home for shoplifting a bag of potato chips... The next time they picked me up I was riding a ten-speed bike I didn't even know was supposed to be stolen..."
It's the highest grossing New Zealand film, and number 2 is Waititi's earlier Boy.
Julian Dennison is the young man, Sam Neill, Rima De Wiata the nicest foster mum ever, Rachel House the officer in pursuit, Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne the young girl on the horse, Rhys Darby 'Psycho Sam' ("Wait - there's an underground bunker... No, I haven't got around to building it yet!") and Waititi himself is a minister.
We were reflecting on the cultural similarities of New Zealand and Hawaii...
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