There Once Was an Island: Te Henua e Nnoho (March, 2010)
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Firstly, apologies for no newsletter in your inbox yesterday. I was at a memorial service for a very precious former colleague, someone who — if she hadn’t been such a private person — should have her story told far and wide.
I loved working with her and yesterday, I heard stories that filled in the gaps in her history. Wellington would not be what it is now without her.
Yesterday’s newsletter will be delivered tomorrow — in time for the weekend. Meanwhile, here’s something I came across in the archives.
It’s easy to think of climate change as a recent phenomenon but directors like Briar March were on to this over a decade ago:
When I first visited this country back in 1982 we flew across the Pacific Ocean in daylight and from my window seat I got a birds eye view of … not very much. Lots of flat blue uninterrupted sea, not even so much a rusty tramp steamer to break the monotony. No wonder they usually do this leg in the dark, I thought.
Once I got here I understood that there was a lot going on down there on many tiny speckled islands and atolls – and the richness of the Pacific and its relationship to New Zealand was just one of the reasons why I’m still here all these years later – but now the creeping specter of global warming is transforming the Pacific into the pristine environment I thought I saw all those years ago – unsullied by coral, sand, taro or people.
This process is already well under way as Briar March’s astounding documentary There Once was an Island illustrates. In 2006 Ms. March and a tiny crew spent several months on Takuu, a remote atoll overseen by the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG), serviced and supported by a rare and irregular shipping service and short wave radio. Even then the waves were lapping at the edge of peoples’ homes and the ABG offer of a haven among the mainland sugar plantations effectively meant asking 4000 people to say goodbye to their entire way of life.
March and her crew returned two years later with some scientists who could explain the peril (and perhaps offer some protection strategies) but by then it was already too late. High tides were destroying buildings and there wasn’t any higher ground to move to.
There Once was an Island is a vital documentary about a clear and present danger to us all. Seek it out before it disappears from cinema screens like, er, Takuu is disappearing from the planet.
Also in that Capital Times column from July 2011: Cameron Diaz’ woeful comedy Bad Teacher; Pixar’s Cars 2 (“better than 99% of films that will come out this year”); a film that you probably couldn’t make now but we really still should, The Reluctant Infidel; and Depardieu showing his softer side in My Afternoons with Margueritte.
Where to watch There Once Was an Island: Te Henua e Nnoho
Aotearoa: Digital rental
Australia: Streaming on Prime Video
Canada, Ireland & India: Not currently available online
USA: Digital rental
UK: Digital rental
