Film - Home by Christmas
Home by Christmas by Richard AINDOWNew Zealand lost 0.73% of its population during the Second World War. Historical statistics can often seem irrelevant in a contemporary context, but based on our population today that would be nearly 32,000 men to leave and never return – even the never-ending road toll updates pale into comparison against that. There have been too many films made about the war (I even bore myself complaining about it) but Home by Christmas is unusual in that it cares more about what is happening within one young family than it does on the battlefield or concentration camp. It is a family history. A biography. Above all, it is Kiwi.
The premise of Home by Christmas could not be simpler – it is just one variation on the story of the thousands of New Zealand men who left for World War II assuming that they would return as promptly as the title suggests. This story, however, has particular significance for Wellington filmmaker Gaylene Preston – it is the history of her own parents. Told through the recordings her father Ed grudgingly submitted to before passing away in 1992, Preston’s film contrasts her father’s journey to brief fighting in North Africa and long years in POW camps against that of his wife, Tui, struggling to bring up the child he has never seen in Greymouth. As well as the obvious woes of war, there are subjects not often discussed; questions artfully dodged of encounters along the way and an alluded to affair back home as Ed remains missing in action.
The recollections of old Ed (Tony Barry of Goodbye Pork Pie fame) form the bulk of the narrative, with flashbacks and archival footage and photographs woven with great care and surprising fluidity into the story. Barry’s performance is a fine one by any standard – an adroit interpretation of reluctance and the peculiarities of a father-daughter interview. Of the remaining cast, Chelsie Preston-Crayford could be accused of cheating on her homework, but her performance as her own grandmother is also a worthy one.
There isn’t, in actual fact, much about Home by Christmas worthy of complaint. Occasionally the flashbacks have the undefinable quality of The History Channel (not a compliment) and the closing number rather smacks you about the head when you wish it wouldn’t. The fact that this history is a relatively happy one whilst others faced much starker realities cannot be blamed on our narrator, but perhaps these losses could have been contrasted with Tui’s endless wait.
Gaylene Preston’s film could be construed as self-indulgent and nepotistic – the story of her parents, a leading role for her daughter, a score by her sister. But in truth this is too endearing a film, and Tony Barry’s too good a performance, to level this charge seriously. As a portrait of the choices one makes to enlist during war, Home By Christmas points at the futility of soldiering, and in that respect merely hints at an anti-war message. But what Preston sets out to do she ably achieves – Home By Christmas is both a satisfyingly New Zealand memoir and touching family portrait.