Why are many of New Zealand's cherished icons so shallow, and what is this fascination with Gothic themes? Silence, darkness and free drinks abound as Bruce Munro continues his whistle-stop nationwide road trip in search of Kiwi identity.
Punakaiki, the Pancake Rocks, is a treasure trove of Kiwi icons.
It begins with nikau palms. We had started noticing them long before we pulled into a roadside parking bay at the renowned West Coast tourist site.
But here, the world's southernmost palm species, and New Zealand's only native palm, with its distinctive slender ridged trunk, clusters of bright red fruit and full head of green fronds, is growing in abundance.
For my son Elliot (18) and me, it is the second afternoon of a nine-day, 5600km asphalt pilgrimage circumnavigating our fair land.
The aim is to find out who we New Zealanders are, why we are like this, and who we are becoming.
We spent too long enjoying brunch in Greymouth.
So we are now jogging the bush path for a quick look at the celebrated coastal rocks.
All around us, in addition to other native shrubs and trees, are nikau palms.
Their strong lines, bright colours and geometric shapes are a graphic artist's dream.
No wonder they repeatedly appear in New Zealand art and as tourism and business logos.
At the cliff-top viewing platforms, we join scores of other visitors from throughout the world all gawking and snapping away at the curious and impressive 30-million-year-old layered limestone rock formations.
Adding to the emblematic parade, a number of tourists are sporting silver ferns on shirts and caps.
I would be only mildly surprised if the next person turned up towing a buzzy bee while tucking into a pavlova decorated with kiwifruit.
Back on the road, with the Interislander ferry check-in less than four hours and more than 286km away, we race north along the coast towards Westport and then follow State Highway 6 inland.
Punakaiki has got me wondering about Kiwi icons.
Which people, events and symbols best capture the essence of New Zealand?
Is it our flag, Sir Edmund Hillary, the haka, Gallipoli, the kiwi ... ?
And what do they say about who we are?
The thoughts carry me into Buller's Gorge - a dramatic river canyon traversed via a narrow cliff-side road.
At Hawks Crag the path has been blasted through the cliff, creating an impressive rock overhang.
In 1955, not far from here, two septuagenarians accidentally discovered uranium when one of them put a geiger counter on the ground while they were relieving themselves on the side of the road after a visit to the pub.
The brief West Coast uranium prospecting flurry that followed proved fruitless.
Elliot's iPod finally coughs up something more suited to a road trip than a sweaty weights gym.
Beneath a big blue sky, UB40's sweet sounds fill the car as we zip past vineyards lining the Wairau Valley highway on the approach to Blenheim.
Waiting in a multi-laned queue of vehicles at Picton for our call to board the ferry, I decide to talk icons with two young men in a nearby car.
Luke Higgins and Sam Becroft are both 19, both from Wellington, and both studying law and commerce in Dunedin.
Which icons and symbols do they think best represent this country?
The Treaty of Waitangi, the All Blacks, and the 1981 Springbok tour, Mr Higgins offers.
Yes, the All Blacks are arguably a better known international brand than their country, Mr Becroft says.
The New Zealand landscape is iconic, and Sir Ed symbolises the Kiwi attitude, he adds.
What do these icons say about who we are? Capable, proud and can-do, they suggest.
Crossing Cook Strait at sunset is magical. Also having access to the Premium Plus lounge, with its comfortable seating, free wifi and complimentary food and drinks, is sublime.
Do we take full advantage of what is on offer?
Suffice to say, Munros: 2, Premium Plus lounge: nil.
It is almost 11pm by the time we open the door on our inner-city Wellington lodgings.
JAMES LIU
Shortly after 9am, with his full driver's licence only a week old and having never driven in Wellington, Elliot drops me outside a large concrete edifice in the heart of hilltop Victoria University then plunges back into the traffic stream.
I pass indoors and wander through open spaces, up stairs and along corridors, eyes elevated, a Paddington Bear lookalike searching for signage that makes sense of this unfamiliar territory.
I knock on a door.
An American voice answers in welcome.
I enter and am greeted by an Asian face.
Taiwanese-born, Midwest United States-raised Prof James Liu is going to explain what makes New Zealanders tick.
As I am about to discover, sometimes it takes an outsider to see what is going on inside.
Icons and cultural symbols are important because they shape and reinforce a group's sense of identity, Prof Liu, who is co-director of the university's Centre for Applied Cross-Cultural Research, says.
Identity is about making sense of our place in this world. And cultural identity is always about comparison: it is about our group in contrast to their group, Prof Liu says.
So, symbols are important because they give reference points that group members hold in common.
They share an understanding of the meaning of those symbols. The emblematic items define who they are and bind them together.
Nations often have lots of symbols. Some of them will be shared, and some will not.
New Zealand, however, is conspicuous by its lack of widely shared icons, he says.
''One symbolic story for New Zealand national identity is the liberal democratic narrative,'' he says as he leans back, linking his hands behind his head.
It is a story of New Zealand being part of a great civilisation which grew out of Britain.
''You know, it has democracy and industry and modernisation and all those wonderful things associated with it.''
The second one is more culture specific, a bicultural narrative.
''Most of the contemporary histories of New Zealand use a bicultural narrative. We have a lot of symbols with respect to the interaction between Maori and Pakeha that are constantly used [to reinforce this idea].''
But not everyone shares the same understanding of what those symbols mean. Research by Prof Liu and Associate Prof Chris Sibley, of the University of Auckland, shows liberal democratic traits - being open, welcoming, friendly, honest - have wide buy-in among New Zealanders.
''But that kind of narrative can really be challenged when Maori and Pakeha get into a stoush,'' Prof Liu says.
‘‘Because then Maori would say with perfect evidence from history that, ‘You guys weren't as open and welcoming and honest as you say you are. Because, otherwise, how did the land wars get launched?'
‘‘I mean, if you look at the history, [Governors] George Grey and Thomas Gore Browne, they pretty much engineered those wars to knock out Maori sovereignty, which was promised in the Treaty, and to confiscate all that land from Tainui. Now I treat that as fact because I'm an academic and I read history. But how many Kiwis would treat that as fact? Not that many, eh? Most would say, well we know vaguely that some bad stuff happened in the past, but let's just leave it all behind and be one nation.''
Besides those couple of big, contested symbols, Prof Liu's assessment is that many of our shared symbols are ‘‘more banal'' - obvious, trite and overused.
Such as the All Blacks.
‘‘I'd say [they] are a safe symbol because no-one is going to criticise them, right?''
Running through the list in my head I can see what he means. So why are our icons largely either contested, cliched or shallow as a puddle on a jandal?
It is partly because we are a young country. And partly because not a lot of effort has been put into developing a robust and meaningful shared iconography, he says diplomatically.
I want to know what that means.
‘‘Kiwis would rather not get into a big fight. They'd rather live and let live, and leave things unsaid,'' he explains.
‘‘And that's the way things are done. There is a respect for the silence of the other. So we will just leave this complicated stuff untouched.''
To avoid conflict, instead of solid meaning we often seek simply to elicit shared feeling. Prof Liu gives the example of an Anzac Day commemoration he attended in Wellington at which Prime Minister John Key spoke.
‘‘I thought, wow, that's not history as I understand it. Because the way they narrate it, these men died fighting for the cause of freedom. I didn't think freedom had anything to do with World War 1. World War 1 was these big old empires beating the tar out of each other to decide who would be boss. World War 2 was about freedom, but not WW1. But that's exactly how they narrate it. Kiwis try to find things that can be bound, but in ways that just activate feelings, and don't activate really carefully thought›out histories.''
But digging deeper is important, Prof Liu believes. By forging a consensus about who we are and where our strengths lie we will be ‘‘less susceptible to whatever forces come in from overseas''.
‘‘It helps you, on a values basis, to make decisions which don't simply blow in the wind. A nation has to be more than simply the instrumental values of making money. That's really, really important.''
Liberal democratic values and biculturalism do offer the potential of a solid foundation for our identity, if we are willing to put in the effort to forge a grounded consensus, he says.
And Mr Key's much-heralded national flag debate may be just what we need to develop the necessary skills.
By Prof Liu's reckoning, the future of the flag, due to be decided this year and next, is really a curtain-raiser for a full-blown debate about ditching the Queen and becoming a republic.
Flags are just another tool for states to try to create national-level attachment, he says.
Flags come to represent the country's identity. So, a country changing its flag has a lot of meaning.
‘‘I think the idea of changing our flag is being used to raise Republican issues - so that everyone can talk about it without talking about it. All the issues and the meaning will be in there without the risks.
‘‘John Key is testing the waters, in a safe way. He is a canny enough leader to know that if it is a controversial position you are taking you don't want to be leading the charge. Let the minions fight it out and then you pick up the pieces and see which way to go.''
Whatever the motive, the debate will see people putting forward all the symbols they think represent the country. Naturally, our colonial past and different visions of our future will be examined.
‘‘That is what a flag is supposed to do, eh. It will engage us in national conversation on issues of identity.''
The opportunity, if seized, could serve us well.
SMASH PALACE
As we head north of Wellington, the Tararua Range is gathering a cloak of thick cloud. For the moment, however, we are driving through sunlit coastal farmland. Compared with the South Island, excluding the West Coast, the countryside is dotted with more stands of native bush.
Fruit and veges are also significantly cheaper on this side of the strait; a $1 punnet of strawberries makes a tasty morning tea.
North of Bulls the road climbs into low-lying hills as it begins the long ascent to the Volcanic Plateau. On the radio, the newsreader is warning of an escaped murderer and paedophile thought to be somewhere in the lower half of the North Island. It is slightly chilling. And disturbingly fitting given our destination, the car-wrecking yard that was the setting for the brooding 1981 New Zealand film classic Smash Palace, starring the late Bruno Lawrence as the desperate gun-toting father who kidnaps his own daughter.
Midway between Taihape and Waiouru, rounding a corner marking the beginning of Ruapehu district, we spy off in the distance the spine of the mountain itself, its peak hidden by cloud. This is clearly not a lofty, craggy South Island mountain, but a broad symmetrical volcanic cone. A few minutes later we turn west, circling Ruapehu clockwise from Waiouru at 5 o'clock to the tiny settlement of Horopito at 8 o'clock.
The landscape is a mix of pine and native trees mixed with scrubby, peaty farmland. This is the back of beyond.
No appointment has been made to visit. I am simply turning up in the hope that I might be able to have a look around and find someone to talk to.
As it turns out, I am incredibly lucky.
But at first, it does not look that way.
Leaving Elliot to snooze in the car, I wander into the old weatherboard office of what I can already tell is an extensive car dismantling and second-hand parts business. I explain myself and am dismayed to be told the owner, Colin Fredricksen, is busy dealing with a customer and with a television film crew documenting the lives of the wrecking yard staff.
While waiting, I climb narrow wooden stairs to a voluminous attic jammed floor to sky-lit roof with row upon row of every conceivable secondhand car part spanning several decades.
Approaching a small dirty window at the end of one row, I am confronted by an astonishing scene. Spread out below me, as far as can be seen in all directions are hundreds, no thousands, of derelict cars.
Told Mr Fredricksen is still busy, I head out into a dystopic wonderland that I will later be told comprises 4500 cars covering 6ha. It is a graveyard for the literal vehicles of tens of thousands of forgotten lives, each with their own hopes, achievements, disappointments, loves, joys and griefs. It is a moody, almost mystical space. Perfect for a film about quiet desperation boiling over with unexpected consequences.
It makes me mindful of other New Zealand films with dark themes. Sleeping Dogs, The Piano, Vigil, Heavenly Creatures, Scarfies, Housebound, the list goes on. It is what Sam Neill termed our ‘‘cinema of unease''. And then there is the melancholic New Zealand literature and art. And the ubiquitous black in Kiwi fashion . . .
What is this fascination we have with the dark side? And what, if anything, does it mean?
Back in the office, I corner the harried Mr Fredricksen in the lunch room. He turns out to be a most patient and amenable host.
Thirty-five years ago he was working here for his father-in-law, the late Bill Cole, when director Roger Donaldson was filming Smash Palace. Filming in and around the car yard took about seven weeks full-time, Mr Fredricksen recalls.
Locals, including Mr Fredricksen, played extras' roles. He was an armed offenders squad member.
Actor Bruno Lawrence celebrated his 40th birthday during filming, inviting many crew and locals to a big bash at the Kings Court Hotel in nearby Ohakune.
‘‘He wasn't shy,'' Mr Fredricksen says.
‘‘I remember during filming, when he took his daughter hostage and was leading her out the back, he was supposed to take a drink from a bottle of whisky.
‘‘But they had put cold tea in the bottle. He spat it out and said ‘How do you expect me to make it believable if it's not the real stuff?'
‘‘They got him the real stuff.''
Smash Palace as a film is ‘‘really good, home-grown stuff that people can relate to,'' Mr Fredricksen says.
Does he think the dark mood and quiet, brooding desperation reflects the Kiwi state of mind?
‘‘You see it quite often where people get a change of diet and things don't agree with them,'' he replies.
Why is that?
It is the next day, and several hundred kilometres, before I get an answer - a most surprising one at that.
MISHA KAVKA
I am hurrying down another university building corridor, trying not to pant.
It is midday in a humid Auckland. Elliot has been dropped off at a downtown gym; I've driven across the bus and pedestrian› only Grafton Bridge, twice, in search of the right university arts department building; and now, 20 minutes late for my interview appointment, I am bearing down on the office of Dr Misha Kavka, associate dean of Film and Media Studies, at the University of Auckland, and co›editor of Gothic NZ.
Yes, Dr Kavka says, we do have a fascination with the dark side.
The United Kingdom and United States-trained researcher saw her first New Zealand film in London in the mid-1980s.
It was ‘‘a terrible film called Starlight Hotel'', Dr Kavka says.
‘‘But what was really striking about it was its melancholy.''
From there she became aware of how widespread that mood was in our arts and in our society at large.
‘‘Other European nations do have Gothic subcultures. But here, the whole Pakeha psyche is shaded with this . . .It is quite pervasive.''
That was brought home to her when she taught a course on New Zealand film in Switzerland in the late 1990s.
‘‘Halfway through the course my students wanted to know when was the darkness going to stop? They were just getting too depressed. I had to say. ‘Well, it's not'.''
Where does this psychic shadow come from? That is my burning question.
First, however, Dr Kavka makes the point that she believes it is a Pakeha phenomenon with no Maori equivalent.
‘‘There is a lovely line by Merata Mita in the Making of Utu documentary, in which she says it is the Pakeha who are neurotic. You know, the neurosis, the anxieties. Those worries are all Pakeha things; our worries start because the Pakeha come, she says.''
It is an important point. And, it turns out, not unrelated to the issue of where the neurosis comes from.
Dr Kavka sees its origin in the colonial settlers' comparatively admirable response to the indigenous people of these islands.
‘‘I think, really simply put, it's a concern about not belonging.
‘‘They did not pretend that this was an empty land, which was the case in Australia and North America and many other places around the globe that had indigenous populations.
‘‘The Maori were recognised as being here and having long traditions here . . .and of course the Treaty of Waitangi is all about at least paying lip service to partnership with Maori.
‘‘But because of that, it means that the question of belonging has always been very volatile.
‘‘Why do we get to be here? Well, because we had muskets.''
Over time this ill-ease has crept into our subconscious. It can even be seen in our architecture, she believes.
‘‘It shows that the melancholy and the make›do [number 8 wire] spirit are not completely separate.
‘‘When you are in a place that is yours you build on it with confidence. You dig deep, you sink foundation, you put in heavy stonework. You build big because when it is done it is going to be yours.
‘‘But when it is not yours, you. . .fashion some things out of corrugated iron, wait for the rains, and wait to see whether you will still be there next season. There's a sort of precariousness.''
It makes sense of another phrase coined to describe New Zealanders: prisoners in paradise.
It is somewhat depressing to think that this darkness is part of our identity.
Dr Kavka might be right about its origins. But, as I head back out into the afternoon sunshine, it immediately raises another pressing question.
What, then, can we do about it? What is the solution, the panacea, for our collective dis-ease?
It will be another four days before I get an answer - once again from a most unexpected quarter.
- Bruce Munro travelled courtesy of Jucy Rentals and the Interislander.
