Interview: Taika Waititi

New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi began his entertainment career in comedy, though he can't seem to get away from the allure of drama.

Early on he met Jemaine Clement and the two formed a successful comedy team. That led to writing and directing work on Clement's beloved TV series "Flight of the Conchords," as well as giving Clement a starring role in Waititi's feature debut Eagle vs. Shark (2007).

Prior to that, Waititi wrote and directed a series of short films, one of which, Two Cars, One Night (2004), received an Oscar nomination for Best Live Action Short. Last summer he found his widest audience yet, cast as Ryan Reynolds' best friend in GreenLantern.

But his new film Boyseems to encompass all his skills, strengths, and interests at once, perhaps pointing the way to a promising future.

Set in the 1980s in New Zealand, Boy is a unique coming of age story. "Boy" (James Rolleston) is an 11-year old whose mother has died. He cares for his younger siblings while his grandmother is away. His most notable sibling is his younger brother Rocky (Aho Eketone-Whitu), who believes he has super-powers. Rocky doesn't remember their mother as well as Boy does, and visits her grave often.

Waititi understands that the great coming-of-age movies, like Truffaut's The 400 Blows, deal with pain as well as pleasure and memory. "This is my '400 Blows,' a mix of pain and magic," he says during a recent visit to San Francisco. "Bumbling around discovering that your heroes aren't heroes, and that love is painful, but also at the same time, still believing in magic and still having fantasies."

Into this setting Boy and Rocky's father Alamein (played by Waititi) returns. Alamein is a victim of arrested development, playing around in a "gang" called the Crazy Horses, and pretending to be cool. Boy, of course, thinks he actually is cool and relishes any attention he gets from his dad, even if it turns out to be bad.

"Dads get away with not being the most present person," says Waititi. "And even if they are very present, they're not as present as the mother. And as a result, because they're not there, they're this mysterious thing. You want to be part of their world; you want to impress them, and be like them."

Waititi says that he didn't really base the Alamein character on his own father. He says he was more interested in exploring the idea of what loss can really do to people. "I wanted people to sort of understand where he was coming from," he says. "He probably was a great guy at some point, but losing the love of your life can do crazy stuff to people. Really, those three characters are all trying to replace this person, trying to deal with loss in a kind of strange way. So all three of those characters really, I feel like they're all in some way a version of me -- versions of all of us, really."

Another running theme in the movie is the characters' love of Michael Jackson. Waititi even goes so far as to create parts of Jackson's famous "Beat It" music video (when Boy imagines his father's bravery and heroism). In the 1980s, when the story takes place, Jackson was still on top of the world. But a couple of decades later, he was all but an outcast. "He's another fallen hero," Waititi. "It makes you wonder: can't any heroes just stay heroes? He was alive when we were filming. We were like, 'Well... maybe he'll get to see it and he'll be reminded what a hero he was.' But he died when we were editing."

On top of everything else, Boy is actually a seamless blend of comedy and drama, which manages to stay balanced throughout. Waititi thought about this consciously while editing the film. "You have to inject bits of humor and bits of life in there, so it doesn't feel like two films stuck together."

Oddly, as a funny person, Waititi prefers to watch dramas in his spare time. "I don't want to make dramas, but I enjoy watching them. Kramer vs. Kramer is one of my favorites, and it's not funny, but it does have little moments of life."

Up next for Waititi, he hopes to begin shooting a vampire movie with Clement this summer. But before then, "I'm going to be a dad in May," he says. "I can't wait!"

March 15, 2012