Now Voyager: Another Discovery...

The wind has settled and with it the realisation comes that this little country is the source of so much creativity because of its isolation and wild weather. Nothing can be expected, but all is given.

Last night at the Film Archive I witnessed two films by Kiwi film maker Peter Wells. One called 'A Death in the Family' and the other 'Pansy', both written and co-directed by Peter. They were such a frank and honest exposition of his early life in the latter film, and in the former, a poignant story of losing a loved one to AIDS in the early eighties in Auckland. In this case the story, a very strong and true one, was based on the death of his older brother Russell.

The telling of the story was over the last fifteen days of the life of a young gay man, and his relationships with his friends and family. It was not a very pretty one, the story of his family. Of farming stock, his gruff seemingly unfeeling father, a caring but lost mother, and a brother who breaks down admitting he had done a Judas betrayal of his brother when they were at school toogether. Later in 'Pansy', the autobiographical sketch featuring his real mother, Peter admits to wanting so much to be 'not gay' that he goes out of his way to avoid his older gay brother's example, something which he obviously lived to regret.

The movie is unique in so many ways. The fact of its Kiwi simplicity, coupled with the desperate honesty and harsh reality of being gay in an unforgiving rural climate give it a quality which is extremely hard to find and it is a salutory reminder that being true to our own individual nature, however different it may be, is the the key to living an authentic and happy life. Which indeed, his brother did live, and which Peter eventually came to realise was his destiny also. He has gone on to be a successful published poet and author and lives with his equally talented partner in beautiful Art Deco Napier, north of Wellington. His partner is the curator and creator of the new Arts Centre, a theatre combined with museum and Art Deco Art Gallery which is the pride of Napier. It is artists like Peter, and pianist Michael Houston, composer Jack Body and choreographer Douglas Wright who are the modern day heros of artistic New Zealand.