Among the Cinders

Among the Cinders is a ‘coming-of-age’ film adapted from the novel by Maurice Shadbolt

Among the Cinders, New Zealand, 1984

Director: Rolf Haedrich
Production co: Pacific Films
Producer: John O’Shea
Assistant director: Lee Tamahori
Director’s assistant/casting: John Irwin
Screenplay: Rolf Haedrich
Based on the novel by Maurice Shadbolt
Associate producer: Craig Walters
Photography: Rory O’Shea
Art direction: Gerry Luhman
Editing: Inge Behrens, John Kiley

With: Paul O’Shea (Nick Flinders), Derek Hardwick (Hubert Flinders), Maurice Shadbolt (Frank Flinders), Yvonne Lawley (Beth Flinders), Rebecca Gibney (Sally), Amanda Jones (Glenys Appleby), Bridget Armstrong (Helga Flinders), Marcus Broughton (Derek Flinders), Ngaire Woods (Kate), Christopher Hansard (Michael), Ricky Duff (Sam Waikai), Harata Solomon (Mrs Waikai), Michael Haigh (Sgt. Crimmins)

35mm, 110 minutes, M

Among the Cinders is a warm and human story about Nick, a youth of 16, being brought to maturity by his rough and eccentric old Grandfather. Nick’s friend, Sam, is killed in a hunting accident. Believing he is indirectly responsible, Nick is overcome with guilt. Against his parents’ wishes, Nick leaves home to stay with his grandparents in another town. Hubert, his Grandfather, confides to nick his dream of going back one day to the farm, the goldfields and the gumfields of his own younger days. Nick’s Grandmother dies unexpectedly. Wanting to shield Nick from another death, Hubert decides to take him away on the trip he’s so often talked about – but without telling Nick about this Grandmother. While they are in the wilderness, Nick stumbles across an angry older girl, Sally, who is sick of men – until she meets Nick. Hubert suggests she might make her boy friend jealous but thinks Nick might be a bit young for the job. Sally gently coaxes Nick into making love to her. Afterwards, Nick wants her to stay with him, but she persuades him to return to his Grandfather. Avoiding the police – who only want to tell him his wife has died – Hubert takes nick deeper into the bush. They get lost. The old man catches a chill and Nick fears he may die. Nick goes for a doctor. The police make him lead them to his Grandfather. Finding out why his Grandfather left in such a hurry and realising that Sally has her own life to lead, Nick comes to see that he too has become part of ‘adult mysteries and intrigues’.

“Among the Cinders is a ‘coming-of-age’ film adapted from the novel by Maurice Shadbolt. Director Rolf Haedrich, who’s made films in Germany since 1958, came to New Zealand to direct and also wrote the screenplay with veteran producer John O’Shea. Adaptation uses a considerable amount of first-person narration to help tell the tale of a 16-year-old boy, Nick, going through adolescent traumas. He lives with his devoutly religious parents in a rural part of the country, and when his best friend, a Maori, dies in an accident when they’re out climbing together he feels responsible. He goes to live with his grandparents, but when his grandmother expires, grandfather – without telling the boy the old lady is dead – abruptly decides to set out with the lad on a hiking tour. It might make sense in the novel, but it doesn’t in the film. Overall, and despite handsome photography by Rory O’Shea of the glorious New Zealand countryside, the film is a distinct disappointment. …Television sales are indicated on the picture’s handsome locations and visual dress...” — David Stratton, Variety, 28 March 1984 “Friday 1 October – Bach arrives at 0945hrs. We go to the Administrative Centre for NDR and meet Frau Witthelm for finance and tax… NDR are prepared to be very generous – we get English-speaking rights to Among the Cinders – they get German-speaking. We are in a ‘wave’ of NZ films on the rival network, ZDF. Mana is high… Saturday 2 October – Rise to write and type. The problems of scripting Among the Cinders press on me. I’m not happy we have a suitable construction, especially if we eliminate much of the Maori content. Why, then, make the film in New Zealand? I never did find the answer to this question – except money. But that’s rather hard on everybody concerned. Rolf had made many good films which were artistic and popular with German audiences… With Among the Cinders, Rolf was now trying to make a cinema feature, like many of those young directors he had trained in his earlier years at Nordeutsch Rundfunk. They had been successful – why shouldn’t he? A foreign location, exotic people – why not? Now that Rolf controlled the funds to make a low budget film, he tried to make much of the novel’s Maori content. It was hardly surprising that he also missed most of it, instead relying on those parts of the story that had succeeded in translation to German – the bond between the gruff old man and his grandson. When he saw the film in Hamburg in 1983 [Among the Cinders was released internationally in advance of New Zealand], Lindsay Shelton claimed that the relationship between these two characters was well directed and ‘essentially New Zealand’. It didn’t surprise me that at the Karlovy-Vary Festival Derek Hardcastle won a special commendation for his portrayal of the grandfather. However, as early as casting, I thought disaster loomed. The young girls in the film were led along a distinctly European path by the director’s misapprehension of the basic story. There was little I could do about it as Rolf had control of the German money, by NDR avoiding the cost of sending a production manager or accountant to New Zealand. Though probably faithful to its German translation, the film was inferior to the novel, but popular over the ARD network in Germany where it played under its translation title, And He Took Me by the Hand.” — John O’Shea, Don’t Let it Get You: Memories – Documents, pp.147-48

Screenings: Among the Cinders screened as part of the Adapted: NZ Literature into Film series on 17 January 2007