LIFE IN ONE CHORD a doco by MARGARET GORDON

There's a moment at the end of this loose-limbed documentary about Shayne Carter where he says, “I've always felt like a misfit but I like the individual flavour of that . . . 

“When I look at where I'm not fitting into it's quite often a relief”.

As a casually conversational overview of Carter's lengthy and diverse career – from adolescent, aspiring punk in Bored Games, Double Happys, Straitjacket Fits and on to Dimmer and beyond – it benefits from Carter's unguarded humour and self-aware attitude when the camera is on.

He plays up to it as he speaks directly to filmmaker Gordon, subverting any seriousness, and gives up trying to read from his recent autobiography Dead People I Have Known, then he suggests Carol Hirschfeld -- the former television newsreader -- could read the parts because he's too embarrassed to.

He says it straight-faced but it's perhaps a joke. 

However enter Hirschfeld -- an old friend -- and her subsequent voice-overs which are fine, but rather shift the spotlight from the authentic cadences of Carter's voice.

The film is an interesting collage of styles, prominently it's a straightforward music documentary where we see the excitement of those early days in Dunedin when bands like the Verlaines (in whose Death and the Maiden video we see the young Carter dancing awkwardly), the Chills, Clean, Stones and others were going off.

Woven through that traditional trajectory are passages where Carter today walks us through the suburb where lived, pointing out the local shops, the homes of band mates Wayne Elsey (of Bored Games) and John Collie (Double Happys, Straitjacket Fits).

Later Collie joins Carter as they revisit an old practice room.

It is interesting as wry nostalgia (back at the old school to see mentions of Bored Games in the school magazine) and enlightening to see the bland suburbs they came from. Carter is amused by it all.

We see Carter's record reviews – which he finds somewhat embarrassing – and there's the tragic death of Elsey.

Then it's the Fits in their heyday and so on.

And along the way are interesting fellow travellers and musicians – Leslie Paris of Look Blue Go Purple, Carter's half-sister and later tour manager Natasha Griffiths, the Clean's David and Hamish Kilgour, Martin Phillipps, Chris Knox, Flying Nun's Roger Shepherd and Peter Jefferies among them.

They also evoke the times and say something of Carter's bands and his sometimes fractious nature.

If the film initially seems shapeless and easily distracted, it gets its own momentum quickly and is drawn forward by Carter's personality: sometimes cynical but at other times bemused by looking back at days of innocence (Bored Games) and experience (Double Happys, Straitjacket Fits who were seen as the great hope of the era).

Throughout there is some marvellous footage including early up a persuasively blurry reenactment of a youthful Carter destroying sister Natasha's teddy bear on stage at a Bored Games gig in their high school hall.

But here too are Double Happys live; briefly Brough's band The Orange, classic Fits, their rise and stumble, Dimmer in the studio . . .

Carter also speaks openly about being an outsider, not just in music but as a part-Maori part-Pakeha. He speaks candidly about his family upbringing which shaped him. It is crucial to an understanding of his personality and attitudes.

There is also that formative tragedy: Collie speaks movingly about the accidental death of Elsey in 1985.

After that, Carter – who says he “swam in the black for two years” – and Jefferies talk about their song Randolph's Going Home which deals with that horrific event: Carter says it was a song divined, Jefferies considers it an unbeatable, emotional and musically innovative song.

Here too are important comments from the late Andrew Brough who jumped/was pushed from SJF and he gets to express his disappointment at his career cut short.

There are some odd moments however: as when Hirschfeld reads about the local band London SS (not to be confused with pre-Clash British band of Mick Jones) playing at (Carter's) school and being fronted by “the oddest man I'd ever seen”.

On the screen is Chris Knox and the Enemy – the music being The Enemy's Pull Down the Shades -- so it conflates the two bands.

It's not the only odd juxtaposition for effect, often the footage early doesn't match the period . . . if anyone is still concerned about integrity of image.

At the end, in a gently mocking tying up for the film, Carter tells director Gordon that he's feeling really positive and wonderful, and it's all just reached this point of magnificent resolution.

“It couldn't be any brighter for me, actually,” he laughs.

“But don't worry. I'll be fuckin' dark as next week and be back in business.”

.

LIFE IN ONE CHORD a doco by MARGARET GORDON is screening in a limited season at selected cinemas from September 4

There is more at Elsewhere including interviews and overviews with Shayne Carter, Andrew Brough, Straitjacket Fits and Dimmer. There is also this.