(Written & Directed by James Napier Robertson, Produced by Tom Hern and Four Knights Film, distributed in NZ by Transmission Films. Released in 2014).
This beautiful and at times hard to watch film is based on the true story of Genesis Potini, trying to find a purpose after being released form a mental institution. He was a gifted chess champion who battled bipolar disease all his life. He died in 2011 leaving behind a legacy of local chess fanatics in Gisborne. The authenticity was reinforced by one of the main characters, Genesis's brother Ariki, played by Wayne Hapi whose real life mirrored the role he played (his first only acting role- see this link).
The opening scene with the gentle rain falling on Potini reinforces the significance of environment - people with mental illness are often more acutely aware of and effected by details in their surroundings. Subsequent scenes also demonstrate why their family and immediate community is not always the best place for them to go back to. Although in Potini's case, this is where he reuites with his refuge, chess.
His manic mind found a kind of refuge in chess, and it became the thing that grounds his crazy emotional instability. Chess, combined with the sense of purpose, helping others, his sense of self and his own cultural identity ("these chess pieces are warriors"). When Potini finds himself homeless, he curls up on the steps of the Fallen Heroes memorial on Gisborne's Kaiti Hill, an obelisk resembling a giant chess piece.
(The memorial is in honour of Kaiti freezing workers who fought in WWI - erected in 1923 by workers from the Kaiti Freezing Works)
The latter is interesting as this was a place he felt safe, somewhere he could sleep - up high looking out over Gisborne with his back to the giant 'chess piece'. It held some meaning for him. It was a refuge, somewhere he felt safe playing chess, his other 'refuge' with Mana. Away from the gangs and violence of Mana's domestic life.
'The Dark Horse' Similar to 'The Black Dog'? 'Black dog' was the term Winston Churchill used to describe depression
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