Desperate Remedies returns to the screen after more than 20 years

Desperate Remedies
Civic Theatre
November 28

Sir James Wallace may be well known as one of the great art patrons of the country but he is also responsible for a couple of the country’s most significant films – Desperate Remedies and Hunt for the Wilderpeople. While Hunt for the Wilderpeople is still being regularly screened in cinemas, Desperate Remedies  has not been seen for over 20 years.

Next week though, Aucklanders will have an opportunity to see the 1992 film, which remains unmatched for its flamboyantly sexy love-triangle melodrama and gloriously over-the-top interpretation of colonial New Zealand style.

It has been fully restored and re-mastered and will “re-premiere” with a black tie event at the Civic on November 28.

Many of the original creative team will be there, including cinematographer Leon Narbey and art director Shayne Radford.

The Civic, home of the original Desperate Remedies  premiere in 1992, will be decorated with original imagery, costumes and props from the film. These will provide something of a taster of the exhibition Remedies Redux: The Desperate & The Beautiful, which will be on  at The Pah Homestead/TSB Wallace Arts Centre for the next two months

The multi-award winning film took the world by storm in 1992/93 and made a huge splash in New Zealand and internationally. The New York Times review said, that the film “aspires to be the 1990s answer to a 1940s Hollywood costume drama but with a big wink in its eye and layers of sexual ambiguity added.”

The film was written and directed by Stewart Main and Peter Wells and was produced by James Wallace Productions in association with The NZ Film Commission, NZ on Air and Avalon National Film Unit studios.

The restoration of the film has been carried out under the New Zealand Film Commission’s Te Ahi Ka initiative to preserve, protect and promote the best of New Zealand cinema. It was the result of months of work by Sir James and Wallace Productions’ associate producer Grae Burton with the Film Commission’s restoration team.

Unfolding as a series of tableaux in which the actors mouth deliberately wooden dialogue while the camera adores their faces, the movie isn't acted so much as it is posed in a style that suggests a hybrid of Ken Russell and a Calvin Klein Obsession perfume ad. Peter Scholes's overwrought score, larded with excerpts from Donizetti's Forza del Destino coats the proceedings with a thick quasi-operatic gloss.

Set in a town called Hope at the turn of the century, the film stars Jennifer Ward-Lealand (Dirty Laundry), Lisa Chappell (McLeod’s Daughters) and the late Kevin Smith (Xena: Warrior Princess) in a whirlwind love triangle, made even more complicated by the sly machinations of a failing businessman played by Michael Hurst (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys) and a sexy but devious opium dealer played by Cliff Curtis (Fear the Walking Dead), in his feature film debut.

Sir James sees the film as heralding a new period in New Zealand film saying “the film had a new lushness and colour and brought controversy in a way which has never been emulated. It went on to win many awards including being officially selected for the “Un Certain Regard” section of the 1993 Cannes Film Festival where few New Zealand films have been shown.”

Grae Burton believes it was a film that really rebelled against the idea of the “cinema of unease” which Sam Neil put forward with his famous documentary. It has a new attitude and that was directly in opposition to the current state of New Zealand cinema, trying to do something jubilant and exciting. So much film until then had been totally black so there was a reaction. It also harked back to films of an earlier era like Gone with the Wind and the films of Orson Welles.

“Politically it sits in a very different place from many other films of the period. It wasn’t trying to push any political agenda. The relationships, and the ideology and the sexuality all happens inside a fantastical melodramatic world and it plays out with everything accepted and all that happens is the norm. It’s not trying to be a political film just complete entertainment.

“Then there was the depiction of the heroines with Lisa Chappell and Jennifer Ward-Lealand sailing off together as lovers which subverted the normal lover’s cliché.

“The release of the film also announces that we are back in the film business,” Sir James says. “I had terminated my involvement when I went on the Film Commission as conflicts of interest might have arisen.

“At that time I had a number of projects, employing more than 400 people. Now I am becoming more involved with film-making. The great leap forward was getting involved with “The Hunt for the “Wilderpeople as executive producer. That film is now producing funds for the next film. Not only have I had my money back but I’m now into real profit”

The film was the highest grossing film in New Zealand and has grossed around $30 million in domestic and international sales.

In the last New Zealand International Film Festival Sir James was involved in six of the films screened. Presently the company has a number of developments including three short films, which will be going to the Berlin Film Festival.

The films going to Berlin include Sparrow directed by Welby Ings which Sir James thinks will be one of the most extraordinary films ever made in New Zealand.

Mr Burton says Ings is a great example of the sort of artist and emerging film maker that they have been supporting from early on and who is focussed on artistic expression.

The film was initially rejected for funding by the Film Commission but Sir James provided sufficient support to get the project finished. Since then, the Film Commission have provided additional support.

Burton says they are currently involved with the production of three feature films, one television pilot and six short films that are currently being made or are in post-production

Sir James is most enthusiastic about working on a new project with Carthew Neal, who was one of the producers of Hunt for the Wilderpeople and who was nominated by Variety Magazine as one of the top ten new producers

Burton also says “We are planning to launch an online arts channel focused on New Zealand film and television so we are currently in discussion with predominately independent film makers to have their content available and to export to direct markets like universities and educational institutions around the world.”

The Re-Premiere will be attended by Sir James Wallace, Peter Wells (who wrote and directed with Stewart Main) and stars Jennifer Ward-Lealand, Lisa Chappell, Michael Hurst and Cliff Curtis, who made his feature film debut in this film. The late Kevin Smith will be represented by his sons Oscar, Tyrone and Willard.

Proceeds from the Re-Premiere go to the Wallace Arts Trust and the event is supported by Auckland Live, Red Carpet TV and The Civic.

Tickets are now on sale at Ticketmaster.