"He's making entertainment. Hopefully, it makes you go ask questions and you Google it. If you want to learn something from a movie, watch a documentary." - Samuel L. Jackson when asked about the portrayal of slavery in Quentin Tarantion's latest film, Django Unchained
Earth Whisperers/Papatuanuku is a documentary film featuring interviews with ten people who have some connection to the earth and then environment. They range from Māori wanting to set up a commune, ‘wise women’ who make nettle soup and potions and poultices out of herbs and grasses, a bird caller seeking to repopulate the forests with feathered wildlife, to GM crusaders creating seed depositories.
By far and away the best interviewee was Craig Potton. He spoke of his environmental activism to protect forests and other iconic landscapes. His intelligence, patience and commitment were striking. I was also impressed by Jim O’ Gorman, the organic farmer who talked about tilling and turning the soil until even stuff that had previously been considered practically toxic, could repair itself and produce a fertile base in which to grown fruit and vegetables.
Kay Baxter, a seed saver, might have been inspirational as she fought to know the origins of her food and protect the seeds from artificial hormones. But, at the end when someone asked what the seed hikoi had achieved, as a group of people marched on Parliament, the very bleak and simple answer was returned, ‘nothing’. And there-in lies the problem.
The tag-line to this film is, ‘This is a unique, number-eight wire Kiwi-style approach to Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.’ That is just typical Kiwi hyperbole. This film will not rival An Inconvenient Truth because it is already preaching to the converted. There are no urbanites or people who might people who might represent role models to anyone not interested in growing a bushy beard and knitting their own jumpers.
I may well be accused of being shallow but I began to long for an interviewee in a suit; someone who looked like they might actually have a real job and live in a real house in the real world, a little bit more like the majority of us. 
It’s all very well for Hugh Wilson, tree farmer, to say we should all abandon our cars and cycle for 5½ hours from Banks Peninsula into Christchurch, but it’s simply not practical and so it began to lose me. If people are meant to be moved enough by this to change their lifestyle, then shouldn’t it be just a little bit more appealing?
Many people who might have been targeted were put off by the excessive spiritualism – I know because they told me. It was book-ended by a Tuhoe healer and a Waitaha kuia. The latter is apparently a tribal woman elder with a ‘vision of healing through community within the ways of Waitaha’, whatever that means – there was a lot of mystic expansion and not a lot of material explanation. As for the healer, I am unlikely to take health advice from someone who is clearly so overweight and unfit that they can’t even open a gate without gasping for breath.
I wasn’t even really taken with the much vaunted photography. The shots of the landscape were nice but the subjects were often out of focus. Perhaps this was deliberate – the main attention should be fixed on the land – but it made it hard to watch. And I would question the soundscape too; running water and birdsong is the sonic backdrop to the bush, not irritating music that makes you feel as though you are trapped in a lift in one of those tacky tourist souvenir shops.
The passion of the director is to be commended. This film project is wholesome and it’s worthy. But it’s not for me. I would rather watch a documentary about the incredible and inspiring Craig Potton. If Kathleen Gallagher makes one of those, I will definitely be watching.
This documentary really is all those descriptive words like beautiful, moving, touching and humorous.
A group of old folk (average age 80) get together in Northampton, Massachusetts to sing in a choir. Not only is it great to see them singing and having fun; their choice of song is original and unexpected, unless you’ve seen the trailer. Their versions of songs such as Golden Years, Forever Young, I Feel Good and Stayin’ Alive bring a new meaning to old songs. I Wanna Be Sedated by The Ramones is a classic; by this choir it is hysterical.
The documentary style is so good and unobtrusive that you feel like you’re at the performance and it is instantly engaging. And how refreshing to see the director (Steven Walker) and the director of the choir (Bob Cilman) treat the singers as real people and not patronisingly.
When Bob Cilman introduces a new song to the group and they struggle with it, he is not afraid to bark at one member, ‘You’re holding everyone back’, or ‘I don’t need you to make fun of the song’ at another. One responds with a smile and a shrug, ‘Sure, he’s tough, but so am I’.
The friendships and banter among the group is gentle and genuine – you can still be flirtatious at 92 apparently. The director gives them a CD to sing along to and practice their songs, and one of them turns it over with bemusement – ‘Which side do you play?’
Their sensitivity when someone needs help is very moving. A couple of the group die during the making of the documentary but it isn’t mawkish – old people die. Others have health issues; problems with their heart or eyesight. A trio car-pool to rehearsals, joking that they would all like to drive, but only one of them can see.
Many of the ‘singers’ are fairly tuneless and they warble and waver in that way that old folk can. When Eileen Hall performs Should I Stay or Should I Go?, she speaks the words in realistic enquiry. However, Fred Knittle has a beautiful baritone and when he sings Cold Play’s Fix You as an homage to his late duet partner, there isn’t a dry eye in the cinema. Incidentally all of the bands whose songs they sing give their permission for them to use them on this documentary with one exception; no prizes for guessing that was U2.
They rehearse three times a week in the lead-up to their concert, promoted as Alive and Well. They produce videos with a twist from a fairground, a bowling alley, at a crossroads, and in a rest home. Their performance in a prison was one of the most touching scenes as they shook hands and shared hugs with the inmates. One said it was the best show he had ever seen and while I don’t doubt his sincerity – there were tears in his eyes – I wonder how many performances he has actually seen.
This choir shows the benefits of perseverance, humility, teamwork, and aging with dignity. It’s fabulous to see people doing something because they love it and each other’s company. These guys are enthusiastic without wanting to be famous or compete in one of those ghastly talent contests.
If you stumbled across this documentary by accident, you would have felt you had uncovered a gem. With all the hype that has been built up around it, it is still one of the most inspiring pieces of cinema I’ve seen for a long time. A middle-aged woman comes out of one of the performances and says, ‘I will never complain about being old again.’ I think that sums it up quite nicely.
Earth Whisperers/Papatuanuku is a documentary film featuring interviews with ten people who have some connection to the earth and then environment. They range from Māori wanting to set up a commune, ‘wise women’ who make nettle soup and potions and poultices out of herbs and grasses, a bird caller seeking to repopulate the forests with feathered wildlife, to GM crusaders creating seed depositories. 
By far and away the best interviewee was Craig Potton. He spoke of his environmental activism to protect forests and other iconic landscapes. His intelligence, patience and commitment were striking. 
Kay Baxter, a seed saver, might have been inspirational as she fought to know the origins of her food and protect the seeds from artificial hormones. But, at the end when someone asked what the seed hikoi had achieved, as a group of people marched on Parliament, the very bleak and simple answer was returned, ‘nothing’. And there-in lies the problem.
It’s all very well for Hugh Wilson, tree farmer, to say we should all abandon our cars and cycle for 5½ hours from Banks Peninsula into Christchurch, but it’s simply not practical and so it began to lose me. If people are meant to be moved enough by this to change their lifestyle, then shouldn’t it be just a little bit more appealing?
The passion of the director is to be commended. This film project is wholesome and it’s worthy. But it’s not for me. I would rather watch a documentary about the incredible and inspiring Craig Potton. If Kathleen Gallagher makes one of those, I will definitely be watching.
This documentary really is all those descriptive words like beautiful, moving, touching and humorous.
Many of the ‘singers’ are fairly tuneless and they warble and waver in that way that old folk can. When Eileen Hall performs Should I Stay or Should I Go?, she speaks the words in realistic enquiry. However, Fred Knittle has a beautiful baritone and when he sings Cold Play’s Fix You as an homage to his late duet partner, there isn’t a dry eye in the cinema. Incidentally all of the bands whose songs they sing give their permission for them to use them on this documentary with one exception; no prizes for guessing that was U2. 
They rehearse three times a week in the lead-up to their concert, promoted as Alive and Well. They produce videos with a twist from a fairground, a bowling alley, at a crossroads, and in a rest home. Their performance in a prison was one of the most touching scenes as they shook hands and shared hugs with the inmates. One said it was the best show he had ever seen and while I don’t doubt his sincerity – there were tears in his eyes – I wonder how many performances he has actually seen.
