Lange a brilliant and elusive leader

As clever a Prime Minister as he was flawed, David Lange's story seemed too large to shoehorn into Saturday night's New Zealand Festival documentary, Reluctant Revolutionary (Saturday, TV One, 9pm).

In the hands of journalist and satirist Tom Scott, the story of Lange became a political documentary rather than a portrait, an anatomy of a government which came to power in a blaze of energy and excitement, instituted one of the most radical programmes in the country's history, then crashed and burned in just its second term. But Lange himself remained elusive.

This was perhaps partly because Lange, more than most leaders, was a man of his time and a good part of the two-hour documentary was needed to set him in context. His leadership was as much reactionary in style - against the tyrannical paternalism of Muldoon - as revolutionary.

The documentary celebrated his wit and charisma, reflecting the admiration of its maker. But while it detailed Lange's influential style, it was short on the real substance of his achievements. We heard about the stomach stapling and the makeover, but where was the real guts of what the man believed in and stood for?

Why did he hitch his brilliance to an economic programme which was such anathema to him? Why did his social values come out only in retrospect, expressed more as regrets when things fell apart, than as active policy in the beginning? These questions remained unanswered. Perhaps they could not be without interviewing the man himself.

Scott has admitted that Lange remains enigmatic to him. In an article in the Listener, Scott used the mercury from broken thermometers the Lange kids used to play with as a metaphor for Lange's quicksilver brilliance and elusiveness.

Attempts at psychological analysis were stereotypical - observations about the fat boy who fended off bullies with humour and a sharp tongue, or how his mother's withholding approval set a pattern in his relationships with women - and begged further explanation.

It's not easy making a documentary about a subject still living yet not taking part, and it's a credit to Scott that Reluctant Revolutionary still made fascinating viewing. Its great strength lay in the range and balance of people Scott got to take part, from family and political friends and foes to the civil servants who had the most intimate view of the Prime Minister. The interviews with Margaret Pope, who has always shunned exposure, were a real coup.

The programme's flaw was the sheer amount of material Scott tried to get through, giving it a rushed and garbled feeling in parts. The lack of informative subtitling - people needed to be named more than once and their roles spelled out - made it difficult to follow at times.

Reluctant Revolutionary captured Lange's role as a symbol of great social change, as the figurehead of a new era of national pride and self-determination. But his place in history - whether he will be seen as a visionary, key player or an attention-loving frontman for the policies of others - has yet to be determined. The real verdict is still to come.