Love, Speed And Loss

Herald rating: * * *

A small and imperfectly formed doco about Kiwi motorcycle-racing legend Kim Newcombe, this film is hampered by an unsure sense of what it is.

Newcombe took second place in the 1973 World 500 Grand Prix on a bike he developed himself from an outboard motor engine under the guidance of a German manufacturer, Dieter Konig. He also died doing what he wanted to. Among race fans, he's a legend; to his widow Janeen, who is in many ways the film's major character, he is the only man she loved.

This is at once the film's weakness and its strength. With the exception of some talking-head inserts of rivals, colleagues and friends, the film relies on Janeen's Super 8 chronicle of their life on and off the track and her present-day reminiscences.

As the record of times and places, the home-movie footage is exhaustive and invaluable; but in its sheer profusion it seems faintly obsessive and stretches the film about a half-hour too long.

Janeen's commentary too is often contrived, almost banal, until the final minutes when, in a harrowing sequence of self-disclosure, she emerges as a woman who has never really recovered from Kim's death. They are stunning moments, for which the preceding hour has not prepared us. Suddenly the film is about a human being (Newcombe, seen only in the silent footage, never speaks) and it's almost too much to bear.

The film, opening aptly enough on Waitangi Day, introduces a new programme of New Zealand film at the refurbished Rialto Newmarket. The three-month programme includes features, documentaries, music videos, concert footage, short and animated films. Confirmed titles include Amarbir Singh's 1Nite, Tim McLachlan's Hidden and Roseanne Liang's Banana In A Nutshell.

DIRECTOR: Justin Pemberton
RUNNING TIME: 78 minutes
RATING: PG, adult themes
SCREENING: Rialto from Monday