Arrow Video has done quite a bit to make sure world cinema finds its way to the home disc market. Their handling of various Italian and Japanese productions has been amazing and allowed many films from both countries to find quality offerings. Now they've set their sights on down under releasing films from Australia and New Zealand including the previously offered SLEEPING DOGS and SMASH PALACE. This time around Arrow is offering VIGIL, an art film that made the circuit back in the day and was hailed by film critics.

The story opens with a young girl, Lisa "Toss" Peers (Fiona Kay), growing up in a remote hillside area with her parents and grandfather. Out with her father to round up sheep, he falls to his death among the rocks while trying to recover a lost stray. A poacher named Ethan (Frank Whidden) recovers her father's body and brings it to their home. Staying and attempting to help them he's rebuffed by Toss' mother Elizabeth (Penelope Stewart). At the same time her grandfather Birdie (Bill Kerr) allows Ethan to stay on and help him as he tries to keep the farm afloat. Elizabeth and Birdie but heads often. She wants to return to the city and Birdie insists that they remain here on the land that they've had for some time.

The focus of the movie is simplistic at times but the underlying and more important story here is that of Toss. We're presented with a young girl about to become a woman, a child and yet on the cusp of changing. She misses the comfort of having her father around but senses some emotions for Ethan as well. Is it a budding sexual awareness or youthful curiosity? Is it a means of getting her mother to move on after the death of her father? All are potential possibilities.

At the same time there is the attraction between Ethan and Elizabeth. While her husband is still barely cold she can't help but be attracted to this new man who has to possibility to take his place. But is he someone she can trust to do so, to be not only her new husband but father to Toss, or is he just marking time until he leaves?

I have to be honest and say that I've never been a fan of most art films. They seem to be so caught up in themselves and filled with sub context and metaphor that it becomes a challenge to view them as little more than celluloid snobbery. On rare occasion an art film will transcend that tag and actually be entertaining as well but those are few and far between. VIGIL falls into the middle somewhere.

The film has moments that entertain and provide plenty of story but not enough to fill out its 90 minutes running time. Long drawn out moments fill the film. Questions about why anyone would choose to live like this at this point in time also come to mind. At first I thought the film might be another apocalyptic film from down under but after a while I realized this film took place in the present. The end result was a movie that seemed like one that critics would rave over and most audiences would leave scratching their heads at wondering what they'd just seen and why they spent money to watch it. My guess is most will feel that way after viewing this.

That being said I've often stated that all films need to be saved and appreciated for what they are. What might be something awful to one person might be exceptional to another. That a company like Arrow is willing to present films like this in the cleanest way possible with additional material should be applauded. Extras here include an appreciation by film critic Nick Roddick made exclusively for this release, an on-set report from the long-running New Zealand program Country Calendar, an extract from a 1987 Kaleidoscope TV documentary on New Zealand cinema focusing on the film and it's director Vincent Ward, the theatrical trailer and for the first pressing only an illustrated booklet featuring writing on the film by critic Carmen Gray.

A beautifully photographed movie where the characters seem more than usually shaped by their surroundings. The unremitting cold wet climate in the unforgiving New Zealand hills forces those making a life there to spend more of an effort than your average city dweller. The father dies, the grandfather goes crazy, the mother seeks another life or another partner and the little girl accepts it all because it is all she has known. I was reminded of Samuel Beckett and also of Werner Herzog and perhaps there is something of each of them here. The constant and wearing daily effort just to stay alive and an urge to test oneself further, almost to build castles in the sky. As with the writer there is also just enough humour to keep us engaged and to distract us occasionally from the absolute desperation and futility of those efforts. Not an easy or speedy watch but thoughtful, worthwhile and ultimately optimistic.