WINGS OVER NEW ZEALAND

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 94, 10 April 1941, Page 16

WINGS OVER NEW ZEALAND

T was only natural that the Film Unit people would be hard put to it to avoid calling their film about the Royal New Zealand Air Force Wings Over New Zealand. And _ presumably in Australia, Canada and South Africa similar impulses are being fought and succumbed to, and we shall shortly have Wings Over Australia, over Canada, and over South Africa. All the same, the Miramar Film Unit has done a good job with Wings Over New Zealand, and has produced a documentary which can be sent overseas without apology. The story, which deals with New Zealand’s war effort in the air, lends itself to a good deal of spectacle, but luckily the mistake of making it nothing but a spectacle, has been avoided. The film sets out to tell a story, and that is exactly what it does. Moreover, it tells it in terms of both men and machines, with neither monopolising the stage. — In this respect, it seems fairly clear that Miramar has learnt a lesson from some of the English documentaries shown in this country during the past few months. Human values and personality are both easily lost sight of in war time. At any rate, Wings Over New Zealand does not lose sight of the fact that the ‘planes of the R.N.Z.A.F. are manned and serviced by New Zealanders, ordinary down-right young men whom in peace time you would meet in any city street. There are one or two faults — the commentator’s voice, for instance, is a little uneven, and one cannot be sure whether there are one or two voices doing the commentary in the early part of the film. The photography for the most part is good. Most people are air-minded enough to get a thrill out of shots of "planes bucketing along in formation against a background of snow-clad mountains.