Peck­ing Order

Slavko Martinov’s film places its tongue firm­ly in cheek with its approach to the lives of New Zealand’s most ded­i­cat­ed poul­try breed­ers. As the pol­i­tics of the Christchurch Ban­tam and Pigeon Club descends into chaos, and antic­i­pa­tion mount­ing over the upcom­ing Nation­al Poul­try Show, there is more ten­sion cre­at­ed than one could ever believe pos­si­ble in a film about birdie bub­ble baths and blow dries.

Mar­ti­nov draws upon the eccen­tric­i­ty of his char­ac­ters with­out descend­ing into mock­ery. There is a sen­si­tiv­i­ty in the camera’s rela­tion­ship with each indi­vid­ual, evi­dent in lin­ger­ing shots that feel gen­tle and atten­tive. One par­tic­u­lar­ly com­mit­ted chick­en breed­er, a gap-toothed Bri­an Glassey, gives us an insight into the stren­u­ous life of chick­en rearing.

He admits, almost joy­ful­ly, that no woman would ever have him, as he is too ded­i­cat­ed to his poul­try. ​“That’s life in the fast lane” says Glassey, com­plete­ly unper­turbed by find­ing a tiny chick car­cass on his wan­der around a coup. And it goes with­out say­ing that many more chick­ens don’t make the final cut, either end­ing up in ​“chick­ie heav­en” or as pot roast.

Nation­al Poul­try Show com­pe­ti­tion judge, Ian Sel­by, has stan­dards of poul­try per­fec­tion that instil a ruth­less­ly com­pet­i­tive rival­ry in con­tes­tants. In a more sin­is­ter moment, it is sug­gest­ed that par­tic­i­pants may poi­son each oth­ers’ birds, so set are they are on win­ning. Sel­by sin­cere­ly pro­claims him­self to be ​‘the luck­i­est man in the world’ hav­ing had the aston­ish­ing deter­mi­na­tion to mem­o­rise the bible-like ​‘New Zealand Poul­try Standard’.

How­ev­er curi­ous this film is, Mar­ti­nov touch­es on uni­ver­sal themes of pas­sion and ded­i­ca­tion. The tip­ping from obses­sion into the down­right crazy is com­i­cal only because it is so relat­able. As one chick­en enthu­si­ast tells us, ​“It’s like alco­holism. When you love some­thing you won’t give it up.” It is a cel­e­bra­tion of cul­tur­al diver­si­ty and sup­ports the notion that every way of life deserves a plat­form in which to be respect­ful­ly represented.

The film is instant­ly absorb­ing and, best of all, unex­pect­ed­ly so. Do not make the mis­take of being per­turbed by the obscure sub­ject mat­ter – you would have to be pret­ty hard of heart not to enjoy this.