Flickerfest (Cultural)

In general, I would say that a lot of the films were at least somewhat universal in cultural representation between America and Australia’s culture. For example, the hilarious film about a girl and her mother had themes that were applicable across the world. The mother constantly nagging her daughter was an element that rings true throughout every child’s memory, just as the comical elements of trying to teach your mother how to navigate social media and technology.

On the other hand, we did see a handful of films unique to Australian culture. The film about an older brother taking care of his younger brother was absolutely indicative of elements of Aboriginal culture. Not only through their lifestyle and geographic location, but also through the tribal, group relationship. This type of lifestyle is important to the Aboriginal people as acceptance is a key desire amongst their people. More importantly, rejection is important. We saw a lot of rejection throughout this film — primarily from the father to the disabled brother — and this can be absolutely crippling to an Aboriginal man’s identity to not be given respect from your father. The older brother faced this too, however we were able to see that the father did view his eldest son as being “perfect”, hence why he rejected his younger, disabled son.

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Flickerfest (general)

The movies that stood out most to me were “A Low Hum” and “Yulubidyi — Until the End”. In A Low Hum we saw a 21st Century love story spoof. This movie particularly stood out to me because I could not catch the theme of it until the very last second, which I found to be rather frustrating. I found this frustrating because the intentions of this movie, in my opinion, were not to hold the audience in suspense but that is what happened due to a large switch in emotion throughout the film. In the first half, we see a girl seemingly living a perfect blogger world, letting her followers see how wonderful nearly every second of her life is. However, when the camera is off, we see a girl that sees sad and mopey. To me, this indicates that the girl is seeking something more in her life, and I personally felt sorry for her. However, that’s not how the film ends. It ends with a girl continuing her materialistic life with a boy in a comedic way. It was hard to know what I was supposed to feel for the entirety of the film.

The second film that was most notable to me was Yulubidyi — Until the End. I found this movie to uplifting and heartfelt. The story of an older brother taking care of his disabled younger brother, despite the scrutiny from their own father, showed a testament to true brotherhood. Moreover, my favorite part of the film was when the disabled younger brother managed to fire a gun at his father. I interpreted this as two things. The first, was that the younger brother was able to prove to his father that his disability did not define him and he was not worthless. Second, was that the younger brother was able to stand up for his older brother — something he has never been able to do before.

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Douglas taught me a lot throughout our time together. Whether it be through a witty comment, a sharp story from his personal life, or a New Zealand take, he had a plethora of information that was applicable across the country.

Some of the most interesting things I learned from Douglas existed from our smaller, more personal discussions. Several of these conversations existed around the topic of immigration and housing in New Zealand. While New Zealand as a whole is known for being incredibly welcoming and livable, it has a recognizable issue with certain regions cost of living and available housing.

In Auckland alone there is an extreme housing shortage. Traditional housing styles in this area are individual homes with yards, since most people prefer spaces to continue an outdoor lifestyle. However, due to Auckland being the most populated city and there being limited housing, much smaller apartments are being built to accommodate the issue. Housing prices in this area are skyrocketing, as well as in other major areas of the country such as Wellington. Overall, it is estimated that only 20% of New Zealanders will be able to own homes in their lifetimes due extreme housing prices.

Another topic surrounded immigration. While New Zealand has a tremendous housing crisis, their immigration policies do not reflect this. As a whole, the country is pretty lenient on foreigners requesting to move to the country. However, many people take advantage of this to establish a sort of false residency in New Zealand in hopes that an application to live in Australia is more attainable. Australia’s immigration policies are much stricter but do show favoritism towards New Zealand residents, hence the increased desire to be a New Zealand citizen. I think this is incredibly interesting that New Zealand has not recognized or work to remedy this issue yet. I really enjoyed being able to talk with Douglas to get his insight on bigger issues and have discussions that I would not have been able to have on our group tours. I think learning about some of the country’s issues are just as important to understanding a country and its culture as are understanding its positives. Overall, these discussions went above and beyond in what I had already learned from our classroom experiences.

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On our last day in Wellington, a bunch of us made a friends with five different New Zealand people! This is our new friend, Jamie, who is preparing to move to London to get his Master’s in Psychology! We had so much fun together. He even messaged me today saying he hopes we cross paths when he visits his brother in NYC next year.

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I could (and still cannot) believe the astronomical impact that the Hobbit/Lord of the Rings trilogy has made on New Zealand. Virtually everywhere we went, Peter Jackson’s name was mentioned as having some sort of impact on the area. Every single city and almost every industry we visited had been touched by Peter Jackson. While Peter Jackson was “only” creating films, it became so much more than that — it became an empire. His films started out as groundbreaking work in the industry, setting precedents and new standards for creativity in films, and that was just the beginning.

In the process of creating these films, Peter touched the lives of many. One of my favorite stories was that of the housing market. Due to his films being so extensive and time consuming, a hotel room simply would not do. It was not cost effective nor large enough to accommodate his cast and crew. This did not deter Peter from selecting locations to shoot the films or house his employees. Instead, he walked barefoot to his neighbor’s houses, asking whether he might be able to rent their houses out to his cast and crew. The homeowners were mind blown, shocked at such a request. After a brief period of time and some thought, Peter was able to negotiate a handsome rental price for each house and send each member of the family to a destination of their choice. Some of these homeowners fell so in love with their respective vacation destinations that they decided to stay, with Peter in turn offering to buy up their homes for his usage. One of the areas where this is most prevalent is around Weta and Weta Digital Studios. Today, Peter Jackson owns around 40% of the homes around the studios. Because his studios also require an extensive amount of physical cables to supplement fast internet, he also gave this internet to every house in the area, making this whole neighborhood the region with the fastest internet in the entire Southern Hemisphere. It is still unbelievable to me how Peter Jackson’s films could have such a lasting impact on not only the film industry, but also every other industry that assisted in making these films recognizable across the world.

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Our explorations in Hobbiton were incredible. What I found most exciting about our visit was that we weren’t seeing some reconstructed tourist version of what had once existed, we were seeing the exact location with every little detail right in front of us. That made a huge difference in my experience. While there I was astounded at how locations like this are equal parts calculated business deals, and equal parts pure luck. In this instance, the movie scouts lucked out — they found this location and Peter Jackson loved it — and they also happened to catch the land owner at half time during the All Black’s game. Without the brief pause in the sport of New Zealand, it would have been likely that Peter Jackson and his location scouts would have never even had the opportunity to speak with the owner of the property. Peter Jackson’s location scouts were seeking out a breathtaking location that could be home to a versatile set. What the scout didn’t know was what specifically would sell Jackson on this particular location — a tree. This tree became an icon for the movies and can be recognized almost immediately upon entering the property.

What I found to be unbelievable was the intricacy behind how they kept this location secure and free of curious eyes and ears. They implemented a no-fly zone with the New Zealand government, striking a deal that kept any kind of aircraft away from the set. This not only helped eliminate the possibility of any spoilers, but also kept the set quiet for filming. Additionally, because there were so many obstacles with navigating the landscape, Peter Jackson managed to strike yet another deal with the New Zealand government to get help from the Army to help build roads for the set. As a form of repayment for assisting, those who assisted were able to partake in the movie — an opportunity of a lifetime.

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I learned SO much about Wellington. While I have found every city stunningly beautiful, none of my experiences compared to that of Wellington. While I did learn a plethora of usable information regarding unique statistics about the city, that was not the information I found to be the most impactful on my experience.

While at the Zoo, Koster texted me and asked myself and Alejandro to join him for drinks with some really cool people from the area he had met. I hastily agreed, but am forever glad I said yes. I ended up spending the entire afternoon/evening/night with four incredible guys and one amazing girl. They were all our age, extremely kind, funny, outgoing, and incredibly hospitable. From the get-go, our new friend Jamie offered to get Alejandro and I drinks, repeatedly saying “we are the guests”. I thought drinks would be the end of our meeting, however we quickly realized how much we all liked each other. Our small group ended up being a group of roughly 20 people, both Elon and Wellington-ians. They took us to one of their favorite restaurants in town, we went out later with them, and ended up being together for a solid 12+ hours. The whole encounter was unlike anything I had ever experienced before and I truly would not trade that memory for anything. (more…)

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