Christopher Pryor & Miriam Smith, New Zealand
1999 Documentary, 1h 39m
IMDB: 7.8
The Sisters of Compassion have lived in the remote village named Jerusalem, in New Zealand, for 120 years. Today, only three nuns remain - their legacy on the river is coming to an end. This is a complex world of powerful dualities; Maori & Christian spirituality, parties & prayers, pig hunting and perfume appreciation.
“The film which Chris Pryor and Miriam Smith shot while they lived at Jerusalem on the Whanganui River is first and foremost a rapt pictorial response to its beautiful setting through four seasons.
Its recurrent subject is whether three Pākehā nuns, kaitiaki of the church and convent founded in the 1880s by Suzanne Aubert, are serving any useful social purpose there in 2011.
Several of the students come into sharp focus; Chevy, a beautiful, open 13 year old, smart beyond her years; Damien, a gleeful pint-sized maniac; and the charming oddball DJ, a Kiwi filmmaker’s dream boy gifted with a face that registers amazement with every emergent thought. The gentle, chipper sisters are not missionaries: it’s themselves they set out to improve.
As Pākehā artists, Pryor and Smith are perfectly placed to touch us with the sisters’ awkwardness and humility as they too achieve connection with this bewitching bend in the river – and its hospitable, bemused tangata whenua.”
– Bill Gosden, New Zealand International Film Festival 2012
