Luit Bieringa’s lovely portrait of Wellington art dealer Peter McLeavey intersperses a lyrical picture of McLeavey’s Wellington with Sam Neill’s readings from his correspondence, and frank conversations with the man himself.
This intriguing, piquant portrait encourages us to consider how life might look through the eyes of its subject.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2009
The Man in the Hat 2009
There's an airy spirit of existential enquiry floating through Luit Bieringa's lovely portrait of Wellington artdealer Peter McLeavey. A fundamental biographer's question – what makes this guy tick? – is quietly turned back on us: McLeavey seems to live a highly ordered life in a state of perpetual curiosity about what makes any of us in this corner of the world tick, himself included. Starting out as a dealer from his bedroom flat in 1966, McLeavey was already championing Toss Woollaston, Colin McCahon and Gordon Walters as purveyors of vision informed by New Zealand experience. He opened his two-room dealer gallery at 147 Cuba Street in 1968. Forty years and 500 or so exhibitions later he's still there. Cinematographer Leon Narbey follows the dapper man in a hat from his home in Hill Street on the circuitous scenic route he takes each morning to work. Bieringa intersperses this lyrical picture of McLeavey's Wellington with readings from his correspondence and frank, revealing conversations with the man himself. — BG