16 / 56
Video Visionaries Capture
Luthier Laurie Williams discusses his craft with woodlot owner Karamea Davis in
Song
of the Kauri
directed by Mathurin Molgat.
16
COROMANDEL LIFE 2015 WINTER
SONG OF THE KAURI
honours kauri wood’s resonant qualities
and the power of the tree’s story
A
professional documentary filmmaker, Mathurin Molgat, is one Kiwi who takes the
kauri tree’s ‘story’ seriously. And he found another quality to kauri wood: its use in
making musical instruments. The very qualities that made the lumber valuable for spars –
the fine straight grain, the ‘hard yet resiliant’ fibres – also made the resonant wood perfect
for crafting instruments such as guitars, mandolins, ukes, and violins.
In Mathurin’s documentary,
Song of the Kauri
(2012), he surrounds himself with a stellar
cast of uniquely talented people – all impassioned by this project and kauri. It was five
years in the making and includes interviews with musicians and instrument makers such
as luthier Laurie Williams (who wants his instruments to ‘sing the story’ of the kauri) as
well as kauri plantation farmers. These plantations could offer sustainable harvests, slow
harvests, careful harvests...because of the story ingrained in the wood.
At a highly recommended videotaped TEDx lecture at Queenstown in April of 2013, you
feel Mathurin’s deep reverence as he talks about the ‘mana’ of the kauri, referring to them
as “gothic cathedrals”.
He holds up a uke made in China,
“which sounds okay, and costs perhaps
$50”. Mathurin then plays a uke, which
sounds so much better – it’s of finer
craftsmanship...and made of kauri.
“It’s valued at $5,000.” For a gorgeous
kauri mandolin? Expect to pay $35,000.
These were all made by Williams. Why
are people willing to pay? – for its
mystique and ‘story’, its mana.
Mathurin – an avid skier, guitarist, songwriter, poet – also talks about an approach to
promoting new kauri forests and plantations – another expression of the story. Can kauri
become our currency in the new world of green economics? Mathurin believes so. He
sees the wood as a sustainable industry. More and more plantations could be planted,
the older plantations protected, and with proper cultivation, the plantation trees grown
into useable wood more quickly, 12 times faster than in the wild.
There is nothing like being in the presence of a mighty kauri. “To stand in one of those
groves and look up at those crowns into the sky is an amazing and humbling experience.
You get there with whatever attitude you come with, and you leave there without it.”
“Poetic, political and timely, ‘Song of the Kauri’ is a surprisingly frank and firmly grassroots
documentary film that every New Zealander needs to see.”
The documentary will be shown on 29 July as part of the HMS Buffalo Homecoming Week at the Mercury
Bay Twin Cinemas. Director/producer Mathurin Molgat will attend and violinist Helen Duder will play a violin
made of kauri. The film is available for download viewing or DVD purchase at
www.songofthekauri.com.