Scarfies

Easily the most outlandishly entertaining New Zealand film for years.

Scarfies, New Zealand, 1999

Director: Robert Sarkies
Production co: Essential Films/Portman Entertainment/New Zealand Film Commission/New Zealand On Air/Film 2/Nightmare Productions
Producer: Lisa Chatfield
Executive producers: Chris Hampson, Chris Brown
Screenplay: Duncan Sarkies, Robert Sarkies
Photography: Stephen Downes
Editor: Annie Collins
Production designer: Gaylene Barnes
Art director: Ken Turner
Costume designer: Amanda Neale
Sound: Chris Hiles
Soundtrack: Flying Nun Records

With: Willa O’Neill (Emma), Neill Rea (Scott), Taika Cohen (Alex), Ashleigh Seagar (Nicole), Charlie Bleakley (Graham), Jon Brazier (The Intruder)

35mm, 95 minutes, R16-contains violence and offensive language

“Scarfies' scenario of innocents bumbling onto a windfall giving them a crash course in Underworld Studies 101 is hardly new, with recent variations on that theme including Shallow Grave and A Simple Plan. But it brings something fresh and decidedly New Zealand-accented to the premise. It revels in its setting, the dank mansion and surrounding city lending an air of Southern Gothic, while a Flying Nun soundtrack contributes to the nervy energy fair crackling off-screen in its latter stages. And there's more infectious energy coming from the young ensemble. The quintet of Emma, Graham, Alex, Nicole all react to their hostage-taking predicament in ways that show their characters aren't just woolly hatted archetypes, and debuting feature director Sarkies gets convincing performances all round. Its shift from opening fizziness to black comedy exuding menace, paranoia and contemplations of murder makes Scarfies quite a ride – though its occasional detour into slapstick does loosen the tightly wound tension, and makes for a couple of flat patches later in the piece. But that may be also due to so much of the action being necessarily house bound. Still, it’s easily the most outlandishly entertaining New Zealand film for years...” — Russell Baillie, Christchurch Star, 6 August 1999

“The catalouge of successful New Zealand comedy in television and film is woefully slim. In fact, we’ve been trying without much luck for decades to make cinema audiences laugh but the Sarkies brothers, Robert and Duncan, have succeeded... they have scripted a seamlessly wacky tale that doesn’t put a foot wrong... Scarfies is very funny. It is also mercifully free of what has become a staple Antipodean source of humour – poking fun at the bogans and suburban kitsch. The Sarkies eschew laughs about pavlova and stuffed kiwis and simple move outwards from their initial premise into more and more outlandish territory until murder seems a reasonable proposition for the flatmates to discuss. And without ever raising the topic explicitly, there is a strong hint that peer pressure makes group psychology much more devious and dark than the sum of its individuals. The best performance belongs to Alex as the least principled of the group, while the drug dealer, a glowering, malevolent figure locked in the basement, anchors the action even though his role is mostly confined to glowering and looking malevolent. Go and see this film – not out of loyalty to the local industry but because it is genuinely funny.” — Graham Adams, Metro, August 1999

Screenings: Scarfies screened on 24 October 2012; as part of the Reel Festival on 14 and 16 September 2011; on 11 February 2009 in a season celebrating NZ music on film; on 11 & 12 December 2008 as part of the troubled teens season; and on 13 December 2006