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| Niki Caro (left) provides some direction on the set of 'The Vintner's Luck'. |
Niki Caro's film version of award-winning novel The
Vintner's Luck hits screens next week. Shane Gilchrist
discusses angel wings, divine wine and long lunches with the
New Zealand director.
N
ow here's a challenge. An
award-winning novelist, Elizabeth Knox, author of The
Vintner's Luck, suggests to an award-winning director,
Niki Caro, that a big-screen distillation of the book in
question might be a hard ask.
Some seven years since she first started work on the film of
the book, a week before its release on screens throughout New
Zealand, Caro offers a conclusion during a telephone
interview from her Auckland base.
Having taken stock of the film-making experience, swirled it
around like a sommelier would a particular vintage, she
reveals it has not been without its challenges.
"When I first approached Elizabeth about the option, I saw an
amazing opportunity to talk about being human. It is such an
elemental, sensual story. I was very drawn to it," Caro says,
before disclosing the film was done in "fits and starts".
"In this story there was the opportunity to talk about the
spiritual dimension of human life," Caro says. "As a
film-maker, there is pretty much nothing in human nature or
Mother Nature that doesn't compel me."
Caro, who has read Knox's Montana Award-winning novel "many
times" and is thus well acquainted with its key themes,
agrees on a quick list of those which flow through her
reworked version.
There is love (of man, woman, spirit, wine ...); perseverance
(the message that nothing great ever comes easily); sacrifice
(says Caro, "you can't always have it your own way"); and
transformation (the key character's greatest wine is his
final vintage, one comprising all his life experience).
The issue of transformation has parallels in Caro's own life,
too.
"I got the option for the book but then I had a baby, made a
big film in Hollywood [North Country], then I came back to
work to work on the screenplay, then had another baby. Life
continues.
"I'm not the sort of film-maker who devotes myself entirely
to the cause of film-making. It's not my singular driving
force; it's working in tandem with all the other forces in my
life. The thing that has surprised me greatly is that having
a family, which is so time-consuming, actually makes my work
better and gives me more insight, more sensitivity and
instinct. It thrills me that my life and work are
interchangeable."
In short, The Vintner's Luck follows the life of
Sobran Jodeau (played by Jeremie Renier), an ambitious,
passionate French wine-maker of the early 19th century, and
the three (not counting wine) loves of his life: his young
wife Celeste (Keisha Castle-Hughes), baroness Aurora (Vera
Farmiga) and fallen angel Xas (Gaspard Ulliel), with whom
Sobran forms a life-long friendship.
Each year, Sobran meets Xas, who tastes his vintages and
offers counsel. The wine is a metaphor (a message in a
bottle?), the drink being a distillation of its maker's
experience. In the angel's case, the spiritual entity simply
offers a means to reflect on the human experience. The
overall thrust? No love without loss; no joy without pain.
All pain aside, the process of researching wine-making was
highly enjoyable, Caro confides.
"Oh, did we drink . . . the winemakers are such characters
and are so pleased to share their wine with you. We couldn't
possibly just put it in our mouths and spit it on the floor.
The wine was so beautiful that we were half-cut in parts of
pre-production, I think . . . and very pleasantly so."
