Red Mole with Alan Brunton (left) and Sally Rodwell (right). Photo / Joe Bleakley
Red Mole with Alan Brunton (left) and Sally Rodwell (right). Photo / Joe Bleakley
This isn’t the first documentary about Red Mole, the 1970s-80s radical theatre troupe that sprang from Auckland academia, then Wellington bohemia, then threw themselves at New York in a way that Kiwi rock groups of the era threw themselves at Sydney, London or Los Angeles. But it is the best.
It’s a bittersweet story of an artistic family and a cultural time capsule; a great piece of archive assemblage and recollections of Red Mole survivors and offspring. And it’s clearly a labour of love for seasoned documentarian Annie Goldson as well as a clear-eyed view of the creative egos, foibles and dynamics within the group, revolving around the central trio of Alan Brunton, Sally Rodwell and their fire-breathing cohort, Deborah Hunt.
Brunton, who started out as a poet, and actress Rodwell are no longer with us. They’re represented by their writer daughter Ruby Brunton, who here is a guide to Red Mole’s NY memory lane stamping ground and the film’s emotional heart.
Goldson was herself a Red Mole fellow traveller, following the group to a then rather rotten Big Apple after it reached saturation level at home with their tours and residencies.
Her definitive Red Mole doco makes great use of a 1979 National Film Unit one by then up-and-coming director Sam Neill, who went on to make Cinema of Unease and possibly a few other things.
They got mixed reviews in New York, but “Red Mole’s people are sexy flesh and blood” is a line that pops out from one clipping. In Red Mole: A Romance, they get to be that again.
Rating out of 5: ★★★★
Red Mole: A Romance, directed by Annie Goldson, is in cinemas now.
