By David Dent
Maori descended photographer Emma (Briar Rose) is recalled from New York to her native New Zealand, accompanied by her impulsive partner Jackie (Lydia Peckham) to attend a will reading; the will in question belongs to an uncle, a ruthless property developer, who was killed in a knife attack.
Arriving at her uncle’s flat in an imposing converted power station (a real location in Devonport), now occupied by his cleaner Paula (Katlyn Wong), the will reading discloses that the rest of Emma’s family seem to be money grabbing horrors, and that she has inherited the apartment, provided she can stay there fore thirty days.
But as Emma works out what she wants to do, she is reminded by Paula of the history of ‘Broken Bird’ a mythological creature that attacked the island’s first avaricious settlers. But as people start dying around her, Emma has nightmare visions of the bird and feels that she may be linked to it.
“Stop being greedy” is the last line of Carroll’s movie and, despite the horror elements within, this is basically a movie in support of that statement. Broken Beak opens powerfully with a recording of a bird made back in 1987, its song calling for a mate which will never arrive as its species is on the edge of extinction. Sadly nothing to follow equals that powerful opening, and indeed the film is so full of quirks and ecological messages that its whodunit story is rather lost in the other narrative chicanery. You get the feeling watching this that Carroll is pretty mad at the world, and with good reason; the anger just needs reining in a little. On occasion the film fizzes with themes and ideas which work well, but there’s just too much going on. One applauds the sentiment, but sadly not (pun intended) the execution.
The Burning of Broken Beak screened as part of Raindance Film Festival 2026.
Bloody Flicks 