'Skin Deep’ is beauty

Press, 20 February 1979, Page 11

'Skin Deep’ is beauty

By ROGER MACKEY “Skin Deep,” a feature film made “about New Zealanders for New Zealanders by New Zealanders” is about to face the acid test — will the locals like it? Will the tale of “big city sin meets small town progressive association” bring in the audiences, cover the costs of the film-makers, and — perhaps most important — justify the first attempt by the New Zealand Film Commission to get a local feature film industry off thej ground? Residents of Raetihi, where] the film was made and where] the first showings were held, are in no doubt about how] good the film is. At a free showing the capacity audience gave the film and its makers a standing ovation. This reaction has been enough to allow the film’s producer. John Maynard, an outlook of cautious optimism about the film’s chances of breaking even. It is also the only realistic attitude to have. To cover its costs, a quarter of a million New Zealanders have to see “Skin Deep.” It has been done before. “Sleeping Dogs,” with a bigger budget and a correspondingly bigger publicity campaign, drew 300,000 New Zealanders. “Skin Deep” is no “Sleeping Dogs,” however. The latter was a political thriller with jets, car chases, explosions — in short it had all the elements we have come to expect of an American blockbuster in spite of being based on a New Zealand novel. The “Skin Deep” plot revolves round an attempt by a businessman in tie small town of Carlton to set up a massage parlour. A masseuse from the city is brought in to run it and the venture becomes tangled up with a campaign, run by the local

progressive association, to attract industry to the town. The film attempts to mirror both small-town life in New Zealand and its pace — and that may be the sticking point with a New Zealand audience used to fast-moving overseas epics. In both photography and acting, however, the film dees everything we have come to expect from American or European movies. For New Zealand audiences, whether they live in a small town or city, there is the added attraction of trying to pick just which of your friends, neighbours, or relatives behave like each of the characters in the film — a reaction the overseas film rarely achieves. Phase Three, the production company that made the $lBO,OOO film, is owned by the film’s director, Geoff

Steven, the producer, John Maynard, and one of the scriptwriters, Piers Davies. . Forty per cent of the money to make the film came from the Film Commission. The rest was provided by a number of New Zealand businesses and individuals.

If the film is judged a success, Phase Three has plans for a feature film to be set in Northland. If it is a flop, the company will have to return to its staple diet, documentaries. Overseas reaction has been good. "Skin Deep” was described as one of the “finds” of last year’s Chicago International Film Festival, and has been selected for the New York Museum of Modern Arts film festival in April — one of only 12 films chosen from entries around the world in the new films and new director series.