The making of Mr Pip

“I am giving you one last chance! Tell me where you are hiding the white man Mr Pip”, the PNG Defence Force platoon commander shouts to the villagers. He lights up a cigarette and begins counting down to zero.
“Cut! That’s not good enough! You look as if you’re talking to a supermarket assistant or singing with the birds in the park. Do it one more time,” interrupts the director’s voice.
The actor, a senior police officer based in Port Moresby retraces his steps and lights another cigarette for the particular scene.
Welcome to Pidia Village situated on the South East coast of Bougainville in the Kieta District. This is the birth place of the late Bougainville artist/actor William Takaku and also the location for the recent filming “Mr Pip.”   
Based on the novel by New Zealander Lloyd Jones, it tells the story of the last white man left on the strife-torn island of Bougainville during the 1990 blockade by Papua New Guinea.
He re-opens a school and uses his favourite novel, Dickens’ Great Expectations, to inspire students, particularly a gifted 14-year-old named Matilda.
The action takes place during the decade-long civil war in the autonomous province off the coast of PNG. Local actors agreed that the story was close to many people’s hearts, and would portray the hardships of women, children and men during the civil war
Many Bougainvilleans also agreed that the filming in June 2011 on location in Pidia, near Arawa, was expected to help promote tourism in the now autonomous region.
To learn more about how Bougainvillean actors and extras felt about taking part in the movie, I interviewed one Constable Chris Imba from the Bougainville Police Service who played the role of a Papua New Guinea Defence Force soldier in Mr Pip.
“It was a great experience for me personally and I learnt a lot of things about how movies are produced. When I was a kid I used to watch those action movies and think that the scenes on the screen were for real but when Mr Pip was shot on location here, I learnt more about stunt men, makeup, explosions and all that kind of stuff. Most of the guns used in the movie were replicas firing blank rounds,” Imba said.
He added that the producers paid the Pidia villagers and other local actors and extras a good amount of money for their efforts.
Imba added that there were certain scenes in the movie that were really challenging, one in particular was the raping of a Bougainvillean woman by a PNGDF soldier.
“Being mindful of our Bougainville culture, customs and traditions, the role was played by an actor from outside the region.
The film also contains other graphic scenes such as the barbaric killing of Mr Pip, (played by  Hugh Laurie formerly of the Blackadder series and also a star in the television series House) in which he is chopped up and his body parts thrown into a pig pen for pigs to eat.
Imba added that while the film may offend some people he hoped it would help PNG and Bougainville learn from the mistakes of the past and move forward to a better future.
Parts of the film were shot in New Zealand’s  Waitaki District, in the historic precinct and harbour area of Oamaru, as well as in Campbell Park and Fortification Rd at Totara, between Jul 18 and Aug 20 this year.
The airport, north of Timaru, was doubled as the airport at Australian mining town Mt Isa and was used in the movie as the now defunct Panguna Copper Mine and Aropa Airport.
Perhaps Hugh Laurie’s own description of Mr Pip sums up everything that needs to be said about the potential block buster.
He described the film as a touching yet completely unsentimental story of love.
“It is unlike any script I have read or any story I have heard – plus I get to go to New Guinea and call it work.”
The film’s director is New Zealander Andrew Adamson, whose Chronicles of Narnia and Shrek series of films have earned more than $US4 billion at the box office worldwide.
– Story and pictures by Bougainville Police Media