NZIFF: Out of the Blue

Dunedin’s Robert Sarkies ventured into weightier territory after Scarfies, reckoning with a defining tragedy of gun violence that rocked Aotearoa’s sense of security in his chilling but sensitively measured sophomore feature.

On 13 November 1990, in the small Otago coastal settlement of Aramoana, local David Gray went on a day-long rampage with a semi-automatic rifle, killing thirteen people. The massacre was, until the Christchurch mosque shootings 28 years later, the deadliest mass shooting in New Zealand’s history, sparking fierce debate around gun control and changes to firearms legislation.

The decision of director Robert Sarkies to revisit the tragedy was controversial at the time, and his blow-by-blow dramatic reconstruction unnerves but carefully avoids sensationalism. It frames the event as a loss of innocence for the tranquil community, and a day the stoic resilience of local citizens shone through, as confusion gripped the township and residents hid in their homes. The delusional state of mind of Gray, the 33-year-old “eccentric” weapons collector and recluse, is externalised expressionistically in paranoid hallucinations, and his breaking-point agitation convincingly portrayed by Matthew Sunderland.

Policeman Nick Harvey (Karl Urban) – unaccustomed to call-outs beyond the odd break-in – and elderly survivor Helen Dickson (Lois Lawn), with her unflappable pleasantries, become counterpoints of unassuming courage to the terrorising gunman.

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