‘Head South’: Rotterdam Review

Dir/scr: Jonathan Ogilvie. New Zealand. 2024. 98mins

In 1979, Angus (Ed Oxenbould), a wide-eyed teenage schoolboy in Christchurch, New Zealand, is drawn to the underground post-punk music scene and the too-cool-for-school crop-haired kids that inhabit it. Escaping from family angst and upheaval, he invents his own fictitious band – but his lies take on a life of their own. The fourth feature from Jonathan Ogilvie is a vivid, affectionate but unevenly structured semi-autobiographical snapshot of a brief but important moment in New Zealand’s cultural history.

Vivid, affectionate but unevenly structured 

Ogilvie returns to open Rotterdam with Head South, having premiered his last film, the near-future found footage political thriller Lone Wolf, in the festival’s Big Screen Competition in 2021. This picture is the latest addition to the coming-of-age/rock band subgenre, which contains movies such as John Carney’s Sing Street and Giles Borg’s 1234, among others. It’s a likeable film, which makes enthusiastic use of the scrappy, hand-made fanzine aesthetic of the era, and of a choice selection of the music: tracks by Magazine, The Slits and Public Image Limited feature on the soundtrack. Further festival screenings are a possibility, and the film should have no problem connecting with domestic audiences. But it’s also a familiar story and perhaps not distinctive enough to travel far beyond the Antipodean region.

The galvanising factor in any music-driven coming-of-age story tends to be an unobtainable and achingly cool girl. In this case, there are two. The first we meet is Holly (Roxie Mohebbi), a peroxided Debbie Harry look-alike who stalks into Angus’ world to scream abuse at an elderly man who has just unwittingly knocked Angus and his school-friend Jamie (Trendall Pulini) off their bikes. Rather underdeveloped as a character, Holly’s main duty in the film is to provide what at first seems to be an unmatchable benchmark of effortless cool. Along with her equally intimidating boyfriend, she claims to be from London – but the truth is rather more prosaic.

More engaging as a character is Kirsten (Stella Bennett, aka Benee, an Auckland-based musician who became an internet sensation during lockdown). Kristen works in a pharmacy, but in her spare time plays guitar and writes songs. Of all the posturing kids in their drainpipe jeans, she is the only one with real talent. When Angus realises that his lie about fronting a band has gathered momentum, he approaches Kristen, and a tentative, sweetly persuasive friendship grows between them in her laundry room/rehearsal space.

Meanwhile, Angus’s father (Marton Csokas), temporarily the sole parent while Angus’s mother moves out for a two week trial separation, glowers in the gloomy living room and attempts to mitigate his midlife crisis by buying a hover-mower. And Angus’ eccentric elderly aunt regularly telephones with premonitions of doom gathered from the dead relatives that she claims haunt her attic.

The use of the prophetic aunt to suggest dark times ahead is just one instance in which the film feels a little on the nose in its approach. Elsewhere, when Angus first listens to Public Image Limited, his horizons are broadened – literally: Ogilvie stretches the aspect ratio from a tight, repressed little box to an expansive widescreen. Elsewhere, music choices can be rather literal, with lyrics that doggedly reflect the action playing out on screen. But the film’s main issue is the positioning of an unexpected tragedy. Coming at the very end of the film, it’s a tonal swerve unbalances the story and seems to require a payoff that never arrives.