Trouble Is My Business (NZ, 2008)

Trouble Is My Business is a movie profile of one man and his work. The splendid Mr Peach, an Otara boy born and bred, is the Assistant Principal in high-deprivation South Auckland, his home neighbourhood. His school draws on a mostly-Pasifika population, the sons and daughters of parents who migrated in the 60s and 70s to take up low-skilled jobs. As a student manager, he spends his days chasing down student after student, seeking them out when they ditch school, collaring them if they’re acting up or fighting, and then steering them as best he can towards a good outcome.
The camera followed him for six months, and showed that he was good at his job. He showed a deep respect for the students in his care, mixed with a fierce enforcement of high standards. It was a potent mix and the students seemed to respond.
This was an observational documentary and while it won’t blow your socks off it does have enormous charm and is very engaging. I am reminded of some of the great docos I’ve watched that were much like this but stumbled on to a great unfolding story that gave the film structure (like The Heart Of The Game from a few years back). TIMB didn’t have the fortune to stumble into a ready-made narrative, but it fashions some great content from what was caught on camera.
The director, Juliette Veber, took a bunch of questions afterwards, mostly from teachers who’d come along to see the film. One of them was a teacher who felt strongly that the film created a false image of Pasifika youth as being universally troubled without exploring – on the spot, Veber handled this question fairly well, saying that she avoided going into details to protect student privacy, and she had to work with what Mr Peach encountered. The answer she really needed was this: I hope there’s another film that comes along and delivers those aspects of the story, because this one can only tell one small part. And Veber is entirely justified, I think – her film is very evenhanded and, in fact, incredibly sympathetic to kids who are exactly the sort of young people harsher regimes would see as lost causes.
I’m never going to forget the look in one kid’s eyes as he was brought face to face with the boy he’d been fighting with – his eyes were huge and brimming with fear and deep, deep messed-up emotion. It wasn’t anger, it was something else. That look by itself speaks volumes about how far from the truth are the simple stories so beloved in talkbackland of mongrel kids just growing up rotten.
Also, I would have liked to have seen Mrs Peach. I imagine she’s hardout.