Christine Parker's Peach: The Politics of Filming Desire in 1990's New Zealand

Christine Parker's 1993 live-action short begins with music, the kind of repetitive, slow, percussion-heavy, saxophone-dominated score usually associated with low-budget porn. The film's opening visual, however, is a close-up not of the expected soft flesh, but of the skin of a soft fruit. Lest the viewer miss the joke-i.e., that the rounded, indented, rosy surfaces on display are not attached to a human body at all-the main title Peach appears, underlining the witty substitution. As the exaggeratedly sensual music continues, there is a long dissolve to a fixed frame shot of green background foliage, while a truck drives into view and approaches the camera. The front grille soon fills the screen, as does the truck's license plate, which remains in sight for several seconds. It reads "PF 9037."