Heaven

Am back on Cuba Street, in 'Heaven' this time. I have long looked at this wood-fired pizza palace and wanted to try their pizzas, but as I am not a great fan I have waited until I really felt like one. And tonight, a cool Saturday night after an evening at the Film Archives in Ghuznee Street, I felt like one. And I am happy to report another success in Cuba. Very pleasant young people giving good service and really the best pizza I have had, not that I've had many, but the ones I ate in Rome were quite forgettable. So sitting and looking at the passing crowd eating a slice of vegetarian pizza was a good post-script to an interesting series of short movies by Maori and Islanders showing at a special screening at the Archives.

There were only about twenty or so in the audience and all were friends of the film makers it seemed. There was much clapping and laughing at the end of each short. The films themselves were good attempts at representing an under represented minority in NZ and in the rest of the world, so I was privy to a bit of cinematic knowledge few others will ever witness. And it said a lot about this rich but subjugated culture, which is mostly ignored by the Western world, a culture which is an important part of this country I have adopted. 

One more memorable of the offerings was the story of a elderly Maori man, grumpily still living with his grown-up daughter. Don't know what happened to the wife, she probably ran off early. There are flashbacks to his initiation as a youth where he undergoes extensive tattooing, a strong Maori custom. 

Here he suffers so much undergoing total leg tattooing, that it is decided he is not ready for the full completion of the tattoo. He is thus left, shamefully, half tattooed. He is seen to be very unhappy and finally persuades his daughter to take  him to the son of his former tattooist in order to finish the job, and restore his self esteem, especially now that he is also going blind. So this happens, and the final scene is a much happier father, having resolved this big problem, now reconciled with his daughter who has obviously understood his needs before it is too late. It is quite a cultural difference, you will agree, from the Anglo-Saxon one in which I grew up. There is a lot more for me to learn in this island nation.

Getting a pizza in Heaven