Tarawera re-created and remembered

Press, 10 June 1986, Page 19

Tarawera re-created and remembered

Two documentaries feature in this evening's Tuesday Documentary slot on Two. The New Zealand film “Tarawera” is followed by an anti-war statement “In The Minds Of Men.” When 112-year-old Mrs Parewahawaha Leonard died last year, New Zealand lost its last living link with the Tarawera eruption. One hundred years ago tonight Mt Tarawera exploded. Mrs Leonard was living with her family in Ngongotaha on the far side of Lake Rotorua. Not long before she died she spoke to a National Film Unit team making a documentary to mark the centenary of the Tarawera eruption.

Her main memories of the event were of the redhot flying stones and fearful lightning which she and fellow villagers could see from their homes, and children running screaming when the first stones started to land. But most of the ash and debris were carried away from Rotorua and she, like everyone else, was not aware for some time of the extent of the damage.

The world-famous Pink and White Terraces and several Maori villages

near the mountain were buried under many metres of ash and mud from Lake Rotomahana; 153 people died. The National Film Unit’s production is a partly dramatised documentary, looking at the present and the past of this spectacular event. It tells of the Maori legends which for hundreds of years before the eruption had been associated with this volcano, and strange signs, natural and supernatural, leading up to the disaster.

With historic black and white photographs, dramatised 1880 s sequences based on eyewitness accounts of the time, and shots of tourism in the area today “Tarawera” recreates a slice of New Zealand's history.

“In The Minds Of Men” follows "Tarawera.” Produced in response to a United Nations General Assembly resolution to make a film “with the hope of creating a genuine aversion to all wars in the future,” “In The Minds Of Men” combines rarely viewed historical footage, artwork and interviews to convey the horror of war.