Something to watch tonight: Tuesday 28 October

The Dark Horse (Napier Robertson, 2014)

It’s been so busy around here lately that I com­pletely for­got to men­tion that my back­ground­er essay on James Napier Robertson’s Aotearoa clas­sic, The Dark Horse, has been pos­ted to NZ On Screen.

I love being able to stretch out on films like this and the oppor­tun­ity comes along too rarely.

The real Genesis Potene was a gentle giant. In the doc­u­ment­ary that inspired The Dark Horse, Jim Marbrook‘s Dark Horse (2003). Genesis talks at a rate of knots, but not as fast as he plays chess. He was a cham­pi­on speed-chess play­er (and shit-talker at the board), nev­er miss­ing an oppor­tun­ity to school who­ever he was playing.

Curtis’ inter­pret­a­tion is quieter, much more vul­ner­able. That’s a func­tion of the com­pressed story that Robertson has to tell. All the chapters of Gen’s life need to hap­pen in movie time, which — by neces­sity — means con­cision and excision. In the fea­ture film ver­sion, Genesis is not mar­ried and has no chil­dren. When he is released from the psy­chi­at­ric facil­ity, it is to the care of a fic­tion­al broth­er (Ariki, played by Wayne Hapi) and to the gang hangout of the Vagrants and the bed­room occu­pied by (semi-fictionalised) teen­age neph­ew Mana (James Rolleston).

Genesis sees the life­style that Mana is destined for, along with so many oth­ers, and decides he can offer an altern­at­ive. There’s a loc­al chess club hangout — the Eastern Knights — and he can coach them to the nation­al cham­pi­on­ships. Nobody else thinks that he can do it but, one thing the char­ac­ter does draw whole­heartedly from the Genesis in Marbrook’s doc­u­ment­ary is self-belief.

If you haven’t seen The Dark Horse, you really should rem­edy that. Curtis is astound­ing as Genesis but the rev­el­a­tion is Wayne Hapi:

Following in the line of oth­er scene-stealing first-time Māori act­ors like Anzac Wallace (Utu) and Lawrence Makoare (Lord of the Rings), Hapi was dis­covered at the loc­al WINZ office look­ing for a job.

There’s an intens­ity and dig­nity to Hapi’s per­form­ance that turns what might eas­ily have fallen into cliché into the second beat­ing heart of the film. Robertson shoots the scenes of Curtis and Hapi togeth­er with them both in frame through­out, even while still using a clas­sic shot-reverse-shot struc­ture. Whenever the focus is on one broth­er, the oth­er always remains present in the frame, emphas­ising their rela­tion­ship even as the drama of the scene threatens it.

Cunningly, I man­aged to get a quote in there from my own pod­cast. I inter­viewed Curtis and Rolleston for Rancho Notorious1 when the film arrived in cinemas.

Where to watch The Dark Horse

Aotearoa: Streaming on TVNZ+ (free with ads), Beamafilm2, Rialto Channel on Prime Video3 or digit­al rent­al from digit­al rent­al from NZ Film On Demand or AroVision.

Australia: Streaming on SBS On Demand (free with ads) or Beamafilm

Canada: Digital rental

Ireland: Digital rental

India: Not cur­rently available

USA: Streaming on Roku (free with ads), Fubo or ShoutTV

UK: Streaming on Prime Video