The Hollow Men
Alister Barry
Words by Gordon Campbell
For nearly a year, Alister Barry had been working on a film about the spin doctoring techniques used by the New Right during the 2005 election campaign, and was using Someone Else's Country II as his rough working title. Then, the news broke that investigative journalist Nicky Hager had been working on virtually the same topic, in a book called The Hollow Men. Ever since, Hager has provided creative input and a critique of Barry's project.
The Hollow Men marks Barry's fourth full length documentary about New Zealand's recent history, and it proved to be one of his most challenging. So much information existed, so much of it in a dauntingly non-visual form. Once Barry had flattened out the chronological sequence of events in Hager's book into a dramatic narrative, the thorny challenge of making emails come alive on screen still remained.
Largely via a process of improvisation, Barry found visuals to convey the content. By way of example, he points with pride to a crisis management exchange of emails between adviser Peter Keenan and Don Brash over a weekend in late October 2004 - which Barry found a way to render onscreen by shooting exteriors of the pair's respective homes ( and related harbour views ) in Auckland and Wellington, and intercutting them with the traditional depictions of fingers on keyboards and emails unfolding on screen. " Throughout, we wanted to provide some sort of visual relief which wouldn't distract from the story we were telling on the soundtrack, " Barry says.
A lot of people heard about Hager's book, but relatively few actually read it. For those that did, Barry feels that his film adds a fuller account of the role of the Exclusive Brethren. Plus, the film is both a film-of-the-book and a film about the book, and about its effect on political events. " That's part of what makes it such a positive story : that the work of one investigative journalist could have such an impact."
Barry also charts the rise of John Key, who provides the punch-line events that close the film. Overall, Barry hopes to provide a better understanding of " the mechanisms of manipulation used by right wing politicians," so that people will have more control over their lives.
Surely, the techniques of spin-doctoring he depicts are common to all political parties? Some are, he replies, but the imperative strikes him as different. As the characters in the book and in his film confirm, New Zealanders tend to be centre left in their social and economic values. "So for a New Right government aspiring to govern, other techniques need to be used in order to gain power - and this film outlines what those techniques are."