Christchurch ‘punk’ film Head South opens to good reviews in Rotterdam

Monday, 29 January 2024

Ed Oxenbould as Angus in the Christchurch film Head South.

A personal story set in sleepy Christchurch 45 years ago has opened a major Dutch film festival.

Written and directed by former Christchurch film-maker and musician Jonathan Ogilvie, Head South played at the Rotterdam International Film Festival on Thursday and received a long standing ovation, along with respectful but mixed reviews.

The semi-autobiographical film tells the story of Angus, played by Australian actor Ed Oxenbould, whose life is changed by punk rock while at high school in Christchurch in 1979.

Christchurch director Jonathan Ogilvie on the set of Head South.

Ogilvie told The Press in 2022 that, like him, Angus “discovers the world of underground music in Christchurch, which was just starting and was happening in warehouses and any run-down place where you could set up an amp”.

Some locations, such as the famous Mollett St warehouse that housed early punk gigs, had to be recreated for the film but others, including the Christchurch Town Hall, survived the earthquakes. A 70s-style record shop named Middle Earth Records was recreated on New Regent St.

Guardian reviewer Peter Bradshaw called Head South “a nostalgiafest romance” that will have “all of us of a certain age smiling along to its madeleines: the musical cues, stereo music centres and album covers”.

Variety reviewer Dennis Harvey was less positive than Bradshaw, describing it as “pleasant but awfully thin, feeling like a short insufficiently fleshed out to feature length”.

But as well as joining Bradshaw in enjoying the punk-era soundtrack, Harvey appreciated Ogilvie’s “retro techniques to make the film look like an artefact from back then”, even if the film lacks punk’s “messy exuberance”.

Wendy Ide of Screen International called it “a vivid, affectionate but unevenly structured semi-autobiographical snapshot of a brief but important moment in New Zealand’s cultural history”.

Fictitious punk band the Cursed were formed for the film.

Veteran New Zealand actor Marton Csokas co-stars as Angus’ father and former Shortland Street star Roxie Mohebbi appears as “a peroxided Debbie Harry look-alike” whose style intimidates Angus.

Ide singled out New Zealand pop star Benee, aka Stella Bennett, for praise. Of “all the posturing kids”, Benee’s character Kirsten “is the only one with real talent”, Ide wrote.

Ogilvie’s previous films include Lone Wolf and The Tender Hook, which were made in Australia. His best-known work in New Zealand was the video clip for the Straitjacket Fits’ She Speeds, in which the band were filmed playing on a trailer that went through the Lyttelton tunnel.

During his time in Christchurch in the 1980s, Ogilvie also played in the post-punk band YFC.

While Christchurch audiences of a certain age will be keen to have their memories stirred by the film, no release dates have been announced yet.