BITE-SIZED: Cinema of Unease - A Personal Journey by Sam Neill (Sam Neill and Judy Rymer, 1995)

 Made as part of the British Film Institute's celebration of a century of cinema, Cinema of Unease is a key part of Sam Neill's legacy.

I first watched this film in high school, a private Presbyterian institution with a few similarities to the college Sam Neill attended.

Neil’s thesis was one of my earliest introductions to an idea of what New Zealand cinema meant.

Threading his own life story with a portrait of his homeland, Neill creates the image of a nation with a superficial sense of self. 

As a child who had grown up overseas, enamoured with the glamour of Hollywood, and later the genre movies of other countries, my own film culture had struck me as dull. Ignorance, and the influence of the cultural shrug, had put me off NZ film.

But Neil’s film cracked it open for me - the idea of (pakeha) society wrestling with an environment, both real and psychological, that they were not indigenous to - became a catalyst. His concept of the cinema of unease captured my imagination, and motivated me to engage with the films of my own country.

Of course, two decades later, our ideas of a national cinema have matured since its initial release - but the underlying themes, of the ongoing conflicts over what Aotearoa's national identity is, and who gets to tell stories about it, remain as relevant as they did when Neill and Rymer's film was released.

Cinema of Unease remains a significant moment of reflection from one of our first real cinematic icons.

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