COMMENT:
There ought to be more silent films. Sound — voices, music, background clatter — isn't always necessary. It can be a distraction. Sometimes what you see is all you need to get. It works particularly well when the subject is death, that final and ultimate silence.
Not a single sound was recorded during the 28-minute crime scene video that was screened at the High Court at Auckland yesterday on day three of the Malcolm Rewa murder trial. Rewa, 65, is charged with the 1992 murder of Susan Burdett. She was raped and killed late on a Monday night in her home in Papatoetoe. Her body was discovered on Wednesday morning. The film was made that afternoon: the clock on her kitchen wall reads 2.10pm.
The film opens outside her house. There's a really close-up view of the tarseal on Pah Rd. The anonymous film-maker seemed to love that road. Their hand-held camera lingers on that road for quite some time. And then it pans to a crime scene tape in front of a long hedge. There's a power pylon in the distance. South Auckland noir.
Burdett was 39. She worked as an accounts clerk. She lived alone. She remained good friends with her ex-husband, and had an active social life on the ten-pin bowling circuit. She kept her bowling trophies in the spare room of her unit. Winifred O'Sullivan lived in the next unit, and appeared as a prosecution witness on Monday, when she described hearing "a loud bang" on the night Burdett was killed. "And then softer bangs," she said. "And then nothing."