Movie Review: When the Cows Come Home

‘When the Cows Come Home’ was released into cinemas a couple of years ago, but I hadn’t managed to catch it until this week, with it recently having become available on TVNZ+. Why are we covering a film at Hamilton Underground Press that on the surface appears to be about cattle? Well, the connection is that the primary focus of the movie, herdsman Andrew Johnstone, was previously the vocalist in late-'80s Hamilton bands ‘Three Men Missing’ (from which three members went on to HUP favourites ‘Grok’) and ‘Hoola Troupe’. 

My first experience of Andrew was a few years after these bands, when he released his solo album ‘The Wallflower’ in 1994. However, my memories of that night appear to have become corrupted over the years. Nevertheless, I do remember Andrew’s somewhat theatrical performance, which completely threw me. By the end of the night, I was not sure what to make of the music, or the man.  
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Film maker Costa Botes I encountered not long after, through his 1995 mockumentary ‘Forgotten Silver’. Playing on TV One, it told the story of a pioneering, fictitious, New Zealand filmmaker called Colin McKenzie. Many in the country were as discombobulated by the film as I was with Johnstone’s Wallflower performance. I missed the beginning of the film, and for a while was fascinated by the story I was watching. Very quickly, however, I felt foolish for believing what I had been watching, as it rapidly moved from one outlandish scene to the next. Surely everyone else could tell this was a work of fiction?! I enjoyed the rest of the film, laughing at the absurdity of it all. Going to bed that night, I listened to talkback – a ritual at the time that helped me fall sleep – only to be dumbfounded to find that there were many who had watched it with a less than critical eye, still somehow believing everything they had watched, and regaling the host with stories of the achievements of this amazing man. The next morning was a different story, with the callers to the station angry and what they saw as a deception. All of this made for one of my most memorable filmic experiences of all time.

So how did these two worlds collide, with Botes coming to make a movie about Johnstone? Andrew, it turns out, is an accidental film star. Filmmaker Botes ‘friended’ him on Facebook, thinking he was someone else he knew. Despite soon realising he had gotten the wrong person, Botes was enjoying Andrew’s posts about his cows, particularly of Maggie and Tilly, their behaviours, and his relationship with them. Soon Botes felt this might make an interesting film. The focus of the film was meant to be about the cows, but once filming began, Andrew quickly became the central figure.
The film starts gently, following the original focus of the cows themselves. This resonated with my own upbringing on a small Waikato dairy farm, limited enough in size for all the cows in the herd to be known to my father by name. Other similarities included the lack of need or want for dogs or motorbikes, and an understanding of individual animal’s behaviours that seemingly didn’t appear apparent to the farmers on larger properties. Nevertheless, I suspect that these commonalities are likely where the similarities between Andrew and my father end.

From there, the film takes a shift left, looking into Andrew's life and some of the factors that shaped him – from his childhood and family tragedy, his mental health issues which became amplified through his teenage years, the influence of Catholic schooling, and his time as an artist and worker at Hamilton’s DVD rental store Auteur House. And, of course, into our wheelhouse, his musical career. The film jumps briefly into the making of ‘The Wallflower’ and his friendship with collaborator Zed Brookes (which continues today), and also covers his time as a valued contributor and editor of Rip it Up - until, of course, it all went wrong.

Through all of this, Maggie and Tilly aren’t too far away. Not a mockumentary, and not quite what we can call a music biography, this is a fascinating look into the life of an interesting and sometimes complicated individual. It’s taken too long for me to watch it, due to a lack of easy accessibility. But that isn’t an excuse now. If you are in New Zealand, you too should be sure to watch it while it is freely available. 

​Ian Duggan