New Zealand Film: 1912-1996

Rating:
Summary: A useful if limited reference
Review: The authors have intended this to be a reference book to New Zealand feature films over the period indicated and their selection demonstrates that they have a very liberal view of what constitutes a "New Zealand" film and a "feature". Even so there are a number of surprising omissions. Apart from full details (some of which are wrong) and credits they give a story outline and their own opinions about each film. Generally the latter are well reasoned but in some cases they are also highly debatable. The book gives little detail about what what was going on in the cinema industry and the country that was manifested by these features and doesn't present much of an overview of the whole scene. Perhaps the greatest disappointment however for what is a visual medium is the poor choice of and reproduction of the stills. For those wanting a complementary and generally better book on this subject, I recommend "Celluloid Dreams: A century of film in New Zealand" which was published about the same time.