You Can Show It Like It Is

But Not In W. Samoa

From FELISE VA’A, in Apia

Telling it like it is isn’t going down well in Western Samoa —at any rate not with the film censors who’ve just made local history by banning a film, Carlo Pond’s Zabriskie Point.

There’s never been a film banned in Western Samoa before, say the film fans, but the management of the Savalo Grand, which imported the film, takes a dim view of having a share in such an historical event. It hoped to show its patrons what monkey tricks people get up to else where, but what goes on, the Films Censorship Committee has ruled, shouldn’t be seen in Apia.

What the censors were against were the scenes of violence and sex in the film, particularly scenes of a sex orgy.

They felt they were not suitable for Samoans.

But, argued theatre manager Mr.

Rudolf Keil, the film already carried a New Zealand censor’s clearance— an R. 16 certificate rating—and it had already been shown in all the larger cities in New Zealand and, more recently, in Fiji.

Mr. Keil said it was not his wish to show the film merely for the scenes in it, but to show the Samoan people life among youth as it is in other countries. ‘The scenes portray the facts of life,” he said, and pointed out that it was no mere trashy film because it had been produced by Carlo Ponti, an internationally-known producer.

Mr. Ponti is also the husband of that dish Sophia Loren.

The censors remained unimpressed and, in case the temptation to take the film out of the can and open up the outside world to the Samoans was too great to be resisted, the police stepped in. They threatened to close the cinema if the ban was violated.

And they could too. They got the use of the big stick in the Censorship of Films Ordinance, 1960 and the 1971 Amendment to the Police Offences Ordinance.

At the time of writing, the battle of Zabriskie Point was still on, under lining the increasing concern of the more conservative members of the Samoan community over the kind of films depicting sex and violence that are increasingly being imported into the country.

During the last meeting of parlia ment, one member, Laufili Time, who thought Ryan’s Daughter wasn’t a

nice type of girl, criticised what he considered was the government’s lenient policy towards film censorship, and urged the government to do something about it.

Mr. Laufili represents the typical politician’s viewpoint towards film censorship and also that of the typical village leader, but, say some, it is rather doubtful in a world in

creasingly affected by changing ideas on sex, how long the conservatives’ point of view will persist. In a world, which is now flooded with “sex” films and “violence” films, the choice between the pure and the impure is being narrowed down and theatre owners argue they have little alter native but to import such films if they want to keep their screens oc

cupied.

Maybe the theatre owners in Samoa can take heart from the fact that Fiji’s censors, only a few years ago, banned the film Never on Sundays. Now see what they’ll pass.

As Mr. Keil said, “It’s the facts of life.”