Film Festival 09 - This Way Of Life
This Way of Life
New Zealand 2009, 85m
Director: Tom Burstyn
"I treat my children the way I would like to have been raised,"
says Peter Karena, none too impressed by the adoptive father who
raised him. In this captivating, visually ravishing doco, we watch
Peter and his wife Colleen over an eventful four years as they do
whatever it takes to provide emotional security and a life in
harmony with nature for their six children. As charismatic a
subject as any filmmaker could ask for, Peter makes ends meet as a
horse-whisperer, builder and hunter. Seeing the children riding
bareback through the East Coast dunes or astride a horse moving up
a river with their father is like glimpsing the infancy of the
classical gods. (Thom Burstyn's cinematography is that remarkable.)
But is such glorious freedom, a respect for nature and the abundant
love of family all a child needs? Never evangelical, Peter and
Colleen talk with unassuming vitality about the values they are
instilling in their children. You might well leave their company
persuaded that the parents of the future should be getting to know
horses now. - Bill Gosden
www.thiswayoflifemovie.com
