War Stories

One by one, these women in their seventies and eighties appear on camera and talk candidly about their experiences of World War II... in this casual and comfortable setting, the most astonishing revelations are made.

War Stories Our Mothers Never Told Us, New Zealand, 1995

Director/producer: Gaylene Preston
Production co.: Gaylene Preston Productions
Associate producer: Jenny Bush
Executive producer: Robin Laing
Editor: Paul Sutorius
Photographer: Alun Bollinger
Interviewer: Judith Fyfe
Composer: Jonathan Besser
Production manager: Glenis Giles
Sound recordists: Hugo Tichbourne, Beth Tredray
Camera assistant: Rachel Anderson, Katherine Clarke
Sound editor: Don Paulin
Sound mixer: Michael Hedges

Interviews: Pamela Quill, Flo Small, Tui Preston, Jean Andrews, Rita Graham, Neva Clarke Mckenna, Mabel Waititi

35mm, colour & black and white, 92 mintues, G

“These war stories, unadorned and told with heart and soul, are mesmerizing.” — Peter Calder, NZ Herald, 19 May 1995

“One by one, these women in their seventies and eighties appear on camera and talk candidly about their experiences of World War II. The mood is intimate and personal – the film equivalent of a Sunday afternoon chat over a cup of Choysa – but, in this casual and comfortable setting, the most astonishing revelations are made. It could be your aunty or grandmother telling you things about her life that were always kept secret – what it was like to be widowed at the age of 20, or how she coped with the stigma of being married to a conscientious objector. Overcoming such obstacles often required just as much courage and stamina as any physical combat, and Preston’s film shows us something heroic in the domestic lives of New Zealand women. Old newsreel footage and photos from the women’s past are intercut with the narratives. It’s not a case of bringing the stories to life – the women are such vivid storytellers that they don’t need illustrations – but the historic material provides a dramatic contrast between the public face of war and a very different private reality. We hear a jovial, plummy-voiced commentator telling us about the fun goings-on at the Wellington Eagles club (a group for wives and girlfriends of American soldiers): “The young New Zealand gals are having a competition to see if they can correctly pair up photos of the American soldiers with their New Zealand sweethearts! Good luck, gals!” This rosy picture is shattered when we hear from Flo, a woman disowned by friends, and later family, because she married an American soldier. She was branded a “scarlet woman” and accused of giving birth to a “nigger baby”, and her story is unforgettably moving. So much of what these women reveal is tragically sad, and yet War Stories is not a depressing film. Wearing a twin-set and pearls, and speaking with an accent as broad as her smile, Flo declares to the audience: “You think us oldies never had sex!” and later confides that she never thought you could get pregnant “from just one rush job!” These women are born comedians, the sort of characters that deserve a Heartland all of their own, and their irrepressible laughter crops up in the most extraordinary places. Mabel tells us about how she broke her ribs lifting 44-gallon drums onto army trucks; once the plaster was on, she suddenly remembered she was still breast feeding: “I had to get the doctor to cut out two little holes!” These are not the sanitized versions of elderly women that we’re used to seeing in the media; they are passionate, funny and incredibly inspiring. Congratulations to Gaylene Preston for giving us the chance to meet these women and discover a rich and valuable part of our history.” — Marnie Wilton, Listener, 20 May 1995

“The thought of watching seven women reminisce about their experiences on the home front during the Second World War might not sound riveting. Yet it works splendidly, their rapport with interviewer Judith Fyfe, and wondrously intimate camera work and direction which capture not just character nuance but also hearts and minds. The use of archival footage is sparing. Rather, the emphasis is on what these eloquent but diverse women have to say about their times and tribulations. Some will be surprised at their candour, perhaps even shocked by the revelations of a generation whose place and heart were meant to be in the home. But few will fail to be moved by their grit, and their grace under fire from without and within. They kept the home fires burning with a steadfast resolve and a spirit that 50 years later still is inextinguishable.” — Phil Wakefield, The Evening Post, 27 May 1995

“One at a time, with minimum editorial interruption, seven elderly women face the camera and speak about the impact on their lives of World War II. There are newsreel clips and vivid contributions from the storytellers' photo albums. But what renders these War Stories enthralling is the more fundamental allure of revelation stacked upon revelation. Tales that lead us with such plain assurance to the storyteller's heartfelt truth make spellbound children of us all. What is discovered in these stories is emotion that has been long repressed in pain, smothered in shame, or disregarded as insignificantly personal in the context of the international disaster of war. The film begins with a tale that is almost familiar, the tragic love story of a passionate young woman and a dashing, daring man that has the patina of an 'oft-told romance. But as the film progresses the tales become more and more unexpected and the feelings much less classical. The candour with which all these women speak is astonishing to those of us who have seen their generation brush so much sex and death under their carpets. Unlike previous documentaries about the women's War, this is very much a film that is about the men in the lives of its women; and about the enormous disparity in experience separating those who went to war and those who did not. We see how Maori acknowledged that gap and lifted the tapu from their warriors. We see how Pakeha locked it up inside – and tried to make everything good. Their children, who were expected to benefit from everything good, are now parents themselves. One of them, Gaylene Preston, has dedicated this film to her own daughter. Preston's respect for her 'mothers' and her adherence to the shape and momentum they give their stories provide proof of Barry Barclay's defense of talking heads on films: "there's nothing more beautiful than the human face talking from the heart". In her choice of stories and the sequence in which she plays them, Preston sets up a wide-ranging and reverberant portrait of her society. A blankness in the white New Zealand heritage begins to resume the colour and vitality that have been held in the hearts of these women for fifty years.” — Bill Gosden, New Zealand Film Festival, 1995

“When I screen War Stories I can feel the audience saying to themselves in the first minute, ‘O my god, this is a documentary. It is going to be boring. I’m going to have to think. I’m going to be told something’. You can feel this terrible panic. But then Pamela [Quill] picks you up and takes you off to the tennis club dance and describes that wonderful experience of falling in love for the first time and then presents a picture of the man that was to become her husband and he looks like a young Marlon Brando. With that the audience is captivated by the film for the next ninety minutes. In Los Angeles they leapt to their feet at the end and gave the women a standing ovation. The screening of War Stories was the first time that the American Film Institute Associates had included a documentary in its foreign film fund raiser effort, and no doubt the first, and probably the last, time that they had the entire living cast in their presence.” — ‘First Say and Last Cut’: A Conversation with Gaylene Preston’, Keith Beattie, New Zealand Journal of Media Studies, vol.3, no.1, 1996

Screenings: War Stories screened on 27 February 2005 in a season selected by film reviewer and Chairman of the Archive's Board of Trustees, Mike Nicolaidi; on 11 April 2007 in the Arts Foundation Laureate season honouring Laureates Gaylene Preston. Talking about his selection Mike Nicolaidi said, "Gaylene Preston’s War Stories is our most memorable feature-length documentary and reveals this filmmaker’s unique and great strengths."