Culture

Directed by Alexander Roman, (1.5/5)

Morbid curiosity and a long time obsession with the film Heavenly Creatures lured me to Rialto to see this documentary about the Parker-Hulme murder case of 1954. A film with the potential to be a fascinating exploration of this dark stain on New Zealand’s past unfortunately turned out to be an amateur cringe-fest of a documentary.
 
In case you missed out on the “crazy shit that has happened in New Zealand” part of your education, Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme were two teenage girls from Christchurch who were charged with murder after killing Pauline’s mother. Murder weapon = a brick inside a stocking. Intrigued? If you haven’t seen it already, grab a copy of Heavenly Creatures.
 
This documentary with an interesting story to tell suffered at the hands of incompetent filmmakers. At times I found myself thinking, “Oh my God, my dog would be capable of better editing than these people.” Okay, perhaps an exaggeration, but the editing was very clumsy. There seemed to be only one photo of Pauline and Juliet which was zoomed in on over and over and over again. Soooo repetitive. I actually fell asleep at one stage. Admittedly I may have been tired, but the film screened at 5.50pm; I probably should have been able to keep my eyes open.
 
Apart from the terrible production value, the film’s major downfall was the lack of worthwhile footage. Hang on a minute – isn’t this what documentaries are supposed to be made of? The filmmakers hadn’t sourced any historical footage and there were no interviews with anyone who had been directly involved with the case. The filmmakers were really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Among others, interview subjects included those with the illustrious titles of “philosopher”, “researcher” and “counsellor” giving their two cents on what they thought about the girls. The most thought-provoking interviews were centred on the issue of the supposed lesbian relationship between the girls, and an examination of homosexuality in the historical context.
 
The verdict: a bit crap, but if you are a Heavenly Creatures fan or just like weird shit, it is worth a watch if you can bear the tediousness of a badly-made film.