Film Review: The Hollow Men

The Hollow Men
Director: Alister Barry
Author/researcher : Nicky Hager
Editor: Abi King-Jones

This compelling documentary case study in political campaigning faithfully follows the chronology and material in Nicky Hager's original book of the same title, and as such is framed firmly from a liberal/left perspective. This partisanship ultimately taints what is otherwise a fascinating autopsy of the rise and fall of a would-be Prime Minister and the internal machinations and strategising of a Western centre-right political party. The shallowness of policy, the ruthless nature of the spin doctors and the consquences for the population are neatly underscored, while the connections between advisors, donors, and politicians are not just suspicious, they are sinister.

Don Brash's political career was toast once these revelations came out in the book and after viewing the film few would argue he didn't make a wise decision.

The film would qualify as Anti-National campaigning, and that agenda is telegraphed from the start, but the exposé is far too exquisite to be written off (as some have done) as mere propaganda. Offended National supporters may try to take some comfort in the irony that the film being released now means it is actually a form of third party negative election advertising - the same sort of antics the film itself highlights - however the picture it successfully paints of a rather squalid and opportunistic old boys club rings too true. There are many candid moments.

The truly, excruciatingly, awkward moments of forced affection between Brash and his wife are used to comic effect, as are all the other "goofy" moments (to quote Brash on himself). The Diane Foreman emails have also been voiced over to give an effective lewdness to some of her crassly articulated correspondence to her new man.

Key comes off as a likeable, if flippant, jock. In one scene a startled TVNZ reporter watches as Key casually blurts out everything in front of a documentary crew who were following him around. They also film him meeting with two members of the Exclusive Brethren at his electorate office. There follows a later clip of Key on TV point-blank denying he had ever met with them.

It is a watchable and enjoyable feast despite the reliance on text documents for much of the story. Alister Barry and editor Abi King-Jones do well to mix TV footage with voice-overs to keep the pace surging. Background to Brash's Orewa speech set the scene well and sidebar explanations were carefully used.

As a Hager critique of a conservative National Party he rests his story on interpreting lines of communication as evidence of an ideological and class motivated conspiracy. There is not one moment or even thought to compare what National does with what Labour or any other party does with the exception of bringing in the Act Party to play as National's side-kick. The complete absence of an explanation of how other parties work in New Zealand (but linking National to American ideologues) deprives the audience of calibration and in the anti-National setting it thus leads them to assume the behaviour is exclusively a National Party trait. Most seasoned political observers will revel in the sordid details of how the Nats conduct their business, but lament the angle being played here: that cynical manoevres to win an election are National's domain alone, and that routine discussions and documents are offered without context and then played up as yet more damning proof of evil plotting. It will irk the non-partisan viewer. Hager's annoying habit of forrowed brow seriousness and intonations of horror have a tendency to come across as a feigned naïveté. This is translated into the film somewhat.

The audience at the film festival, the left wing audience, gasped and tutted and sighed on all the right cues. It has met with caustic abuse from the right. Usually from people, like Matthew Hooton, who sent these emails. The criticism from David Farrar (covertly filmed in a pub with Nick Smith and Tony Ryall in one sequence) has focused primarily on one lapse in the promotional material to condemn the entire film. That is not to say his more general criticisms about Hager's work are without merit. Once he sees it he may very well think he let Hager off easy in that post.

The one sour note, the stalking footage of Peter Keenan, was unnecessary, inappropriate and ethically marginal at best. The use of the clips of him at home are clearly a breach of his privacy. Considering they used covert footage of him in public places, crossing the street and walking down a footpath, the choice to show him in a private house was gratiutous and for many unsettling. Richard Prebble being egged outside a meeting in the 1980s met with the intended approval from the deeply partisan audience. These register as cheap shots and detract from a story that otherwise invokes outrage and hostility toward the intended targets.

Hager explained in the question time after the screening that Barry had sought the rights to the film immediately he learnt of the book's impending publication. Barry was described in a very good Scoop interview in 2004 as a Don Brashologist. His analysis of Brash is right on the money. His thoughts on the New Right (several documentaries worth) have added a rich baste to Hager's deserved roasting of Brash and his party.

4 out of 5 stars.

Part of the 40th Auckland International Film Festival