On a sweltering Sunday afternoon in Auckland, my friend and I sat, alone, in a tiny basement theatre watching Land of the Long White Cloud, by Florian Habicht. It is a beautiful, beautiful film about a fishing contest on Ninety Mile Beach. For five days, the “contestants” (for want of a better word) stand toe to toe with the toheroa and tuatua casting their lines into the boiling west coast surf. They peer into the ocean . . . concentrating, meditating, waiting. They dream of catching a fish. The biggest snapper.
Pieces to camera present these “simple” folk as thinkers, philosophers and theorists. Sure enough, their social and political commentaries are informed by meaningful things - the roar of the breakers, the huge cloud-filled sky. A local man shares the secret to his wisdom, his key to a beautiful life: “keep your feet on the ground and your head in the clouds.” Ossie Perie a large, grey haired man finally catches a snapper. After eight years without a bite it's not the big one, not even a big one, but it's a snapper nonetheless.
Just over an hour later we emerged into the city and it’s bristling, cloudless summer. The streets were pouring with people, the road choking with motor vehicles. There was movement everywhere like white noise . . . static. My head began to burn and I found myself asking why. It all seemed profoundly unimportant and I wished myself onto the windswept sands, to stand beneath the colour chromatic skies of the far north. Just to catch a fish.
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