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Facts1994, New Zealand, 90 mins
Director Lee Tamahori
Producers Robin Scholes
Director of Photography Stuart Dryburgh
SummaryA raw, uncompromising working-class drama, Once were Warriors is compelling film-making. This extremely
violent, yet deeply moving tale of the Hekes, an alienated Maori family living in an urban New Zealand wasteland, is as powerful as it is
disturbing. The film’s tense, gritty, hard-edged, feel perfectly matches the family’s disintegration under the burdens of
domestic violence, alcohol abuse, unemployment and poverty. Jake (“the Muss” – for muscle), the father of the family, has an extremely
volatile personality and likes to prove his machismo with his fists. Often bearing the brutal brunt of this is Beth, his wife of eighteen
years, who, despite their blighted relationship, still loves him. Beth comes from a noble Maori lineage, but abandoned her tribe for her love of
Jake, a descendant of intertribal slavery. Although this practice was abandoned long before Jake was even born, its slur has left in him a
bitter rejection of his Maori heritage. Unvalidated also in mainstream, pakeha (white) culture, Jake is a man
with a chip on both shoulders – angry, confused and unanchored.
Unsurprisingly, the couple’s five children are variously emotionally damaged. Nig, the oldest, despises his father and seeks a substitute
family in a Maori street gang, the violence of whose initiation rituals, ironically, match anything Jake can dish out. Second son,
Boogie, is involved in petty street crime, and is remanded into Social Welfare custody (placed in protective care) when Beth is unable to
show up to speak on his behalf at a court appearance, due to the severe beating Jake had given her the previous night. In custody, Bogie
encounters proud Maori warrior traditions such as the haka (war dance) through Bennett, a charismatic social worker. The
Heke’s aptly named daughter, Grace, often acts as surrogate mother to the family: it is she who goes to court with Boogie: she who comforts the
younger children, Polly and Huia, when Jake beats up Beth; she who cleans up after her parents’ frequent, drunken parties. Grace finds
solace in writing stories and in her friend, Toot, a gentle, illiterate and homeless teen who lives in an abandoned car under a freeway.
It is on Grace that falls the awful blow which finally makes Beth leave Jake: one night while Jake and his mates party, and while Beth
sleeps in the adjoining room, Grace is raped in the children’s bedroom by Uncle Bully, one of Jake’s drinking mates. Shortly afterwards,
reeling from this and despairing of the incoherence all around her, Grace hangs herself. Insisting on a Maori tangi (funeral) for
her daughter, Beth rediscovers the power and coherence of the traditional culture in which she grew up. She determines to start anew and do
the best for her children. When, in a climactic scene, she discovers, via Grace’s story book, why her daughter committed suicide,
Beth fearlessly confronts Jake and Bully. Jake reacts in the only way he knows how, and in his frenzied rage, murders Bully on the
spot. As Beth leaves him, he yells abuse and threats at her, as he has so often done: this time, however, he is powerless to stop her –
the film closes on his tiny raging figure amidst bleak urban decay, as sirens howl and his fate descends on him.
Cultural Context
A controversial book and filmOnce Were Warriors was the feature
film debut for director Lee Tamahori, who had worked as an award-winning
television commercial director since the early 1980s. In this 1994
film, Tamahori brings together a provocative version of an
already-controversial book, the talents of Director of
Photography, Stuart Dryburgh (nominated for an Academy Award for the
The Piano in the previous year ) and remarkable performances by Rena
Owen and Temuera Morrison. (Morrison was a most unlikely choice for
the role of the violent Jake; he was at that time a star of the popular
New Zealand soap opera, Shortland Street, playing the role of the nice-guy
doctor). Once Were Warriors was a huge success in New Zealand:
the highest grossing film in the country’s history, its box-office takings
surpassed even Jurassic Park.
Citing as influences directors such as Sam Peckinpah, Francis Ford
Coppola, Sergio Leone and Martin Scorsese, Tamahori says that he has
“always admired films that make you reel out of the theater and you have
to go to a bar and get a drink” (www. flf.com/warriors/wsfilm.htm – see
Links). Once were Warriors does that and more. It is
based on the incendiary and best-selling novel of the same title by Alan
Duff, a book which caused much controversy in New Zealand for its
unflinching look at an alienated, urban, Maori family. While the
book’s narrative flows through each character’s stream of consciousness,
Tamahori decided to considerably restructure this format and called in
acclaimed Maori playwright Riwia Brown to adapt the screenplay to focus
more intensely on Beth Heke. This had the effect of providing more
hope in the film than is evident in the book, while retaining the violence
that lies at the core of this tale.
Why was the book (and subsequently the film) so controversial in New
Zealand? In brief, the issue was that of Maori representation.
Critics argued that the dramatization of the awful, brutal underside
of urban Maori life was devoid of any social or political
context. They argued that this failure to recognize the long-ranging
impact of colonization on Maori as the background against which Heke
family’s miserable life plays out, simply reinscribed conventional
negative stereotypes of Maori. Champions of the book/film, however,
claimed that it was to be commended for speaking out about issues too long
ignored, excused, or glossed-over within the Maori community.
On this, at-times heated, debate, Tamahori comments:
…in the
rejuvenation of the [Maori] culture in the Seventies and Eighties, there
has been a small but vociferous group of people who feel very protective
of the culture at every level. They just want positive imagery and
positive reinforcement of the culture. I can’t blame them for
that. It’s a good way to go. But I believe that any culture
has got to be able to examine every facet of itself, whether it be good or
bad …
…These are kind of intelligentsia, or certain academics, or just
people who have a radical position, and they’re quite highly outspoken on
these issues. So they always take a position that is pro-Maori and
anti-white European culture … I’m part Maori myself, I’m not going to beat
up my own people … At the same time, though, I’m going to be honest about
it” (see Sklar – Resources).
The debate over the book and film was, in some respects, made more
complex and intense by the fact that Alan Duff, the book’s author, is
part-Maori and grew up in the kind of milieu which the Hekes
inhabit. And, as Tamahori notes, Duff is “a very controversial man
because he has taken on a huge amount of self-appointed responsibility
about articulating what's wrong with the Maori people. He draws a lot of
fire and a lot of flack” (see Sklar – Resources).
The MaoriThe Maori are the indigenous people of New Zealand and
currently make up 12% of the population of approximately 3
million. Before the colonization of Aotearoa (New Zealand),
and the subsequent lengthy and bitterly-fought land wars of the nineteenth
century (which ceased with the Treaty of Waitangi, in 1840), their
numbers were much greater. The Treaty is, to this day, the
single most important document in New Zealand’s history, enshrining
certain rights for both Maori and pakeha ( white New
Zealanders). In the past, Maori rights under the Treaty have
often been ignored and the Treaty itself has been much contested, but in
recent decades both have been (in general) accorded far greater respect.
In an interview on the film’s official web-site, Tamahori
provides this brief summary, for a non-New Zealand audience, of Maori
culture and history:
“The Maori have a very strong place in New
Zealand society, they always have. They are very closely connected with
the land, very spiritual (like most indigenous peoples), very tied to
intangible things unlike Europeans. Their place now, however, is one of an
industrialized society, and one of a kind of alienation, which is what our
film is about. There's a growing number of disenfranchised Maori who are
losing touch with their own culture and society in general. Maori now
constitute a large portion of the prison population and there's a lot of
anti-social problems creeping in -- welfare dependency, unemployment,
alcoholism.
Unlike other indigenous peoples of the world, there was no genocide
ever practiced upon the Maori and they were never forcibly removed to
other areas, so, by and large, our history is one of an appreciation of
both cultures and intermarriage amongst them. There's probably a higher
percentage of intermarriages between Maori and Europeans than with any
other indigenous peoples. There's no overt racism and, if there are
racist tendencies, they tend to be hidden and they never come to the
surface. Should it appear, it gets trampled on very quickly. So, it's a
very homogenous society but that's a bit of an illusion because the gap
between rich and poor is widening and that has tended to make the Maori
much more of an underclass.
(An Interview With Warriors
Director Lee Tamahori www.flf.com/warriors/waintv.htm)
(A more detailed assessment of Maori culture and history can be found
in Anthony Adah’s listed under Resources, below)
ColorsThe predominant colors in Maori art have traditionally been
black, red, and white. Even though the film is about an urban
family, largely alienated from its Maori heritage, Tamahori strived to
saturate the film with these traditional colors. Red is the only
primary color in the movie, and is surrounded by the earthy tones of
black, gray and brown. Additionally, a laboratory filtering process was
used to enhance skintones and give a rich, almost sepia, look to the
film.
“Cinema of Unease”
This film is featured in Sam Neil’s film The Cinema of Unease (refer to notes on the New Zealand film Vigil for details of the significance of this).
Viewer’s guide1. This film has been
categorized as both “melodrama” and “social realism”. Which
(if either) of these does it most closely resemble?
2. Reviewer
Desson Howe, writing in the Washington Post (see Reviews) notes that
although the film “may be set in a world that is superficially exotic [to
some viewers], … its dark themes apply to the oppressed all over the
world, whether they be East Germans in Berlin, [or] Native Americans in
South Dakota”. Do you agree with his assessment of the
universal applicability of this film? To what extent is the film
specific only to a Maori situation?
3. Before a screening of the film
at the Toronto Film Festival, director Lee Tamahori warned the audience
about the violence they were about to witness. What is your response
to the violence in this film? Is it necessary for it to be so
brutal? Is it gratuitous in any way?
4. How many different
versions of warriorhood are represented in the film? Which
character represents each version?
5. While Jake is the internal force
which is causing the Heke family to fall apart, there are also external
forces which are contributing to this disintegration. What are these
and how does the film depict them?
6. The beginning of Once Were
Warriors very economically introduces us to each member of the Heke family
and the milieu in which they live. What exactly do we learn about
the dynamics of the family from these first few minutes of the film?
How does the very first image of the film – the billboard – relate to
these dynamics?
7. The sound effects in this film often underscore the
tensions between the past (Maori cultural heritage) and the present (the
alienated underclass to which the Hekes belong). In which scenes are
the sound effects most notable? In which are they most effective?
8. Related to the previous question, in what other ways are the
tensions between the past and the present represented in the film?
9.
In certain scenes, there is an effective use of
cross-cutting between events. What are those scenes and what
effect does the cross-cutting generate?
10. What kind of shots are
used in the scenes inside the Heke house? What effect do these have?
11. With few exceptions, the film is largely shot in interiors ( the
claustrophobic, ill-furnished Heke house, the smoky, tightly-packed “beer
barn” of a pub that Jake frequents). What are these exceptions, and
what is their significance to the film?.
12. One reviewer describes
the film as having “hyperreal stylistics” (Cynthia Fuchs – see Links
www.inform.umd.edu/EdRes/Topic/Wom…udies/FilmReviews/once-were-warriors-fuchs).
To what is she referring?
13. A viewer’s response to Jake is something
of a conundrum: although Jake is violent and volatile, the film also
manages to evoke in the viewer a certain amount of sympathy for him.
How exactly does it do that?
14. Beth is described by one reviewer as
“both roughly confident and devastatingly vulnerable” (Cynthia Fuchs – see
Links
www.inform.umd.edu/EdRes/Topic/Wom…udies/FilmReviews/once-were-warriors-fuchs).
Precisely how does the film convey this about Beth?
15. What are the
similarities between (the aptly named) Grace and Beth, and between Jake
and Nig?
16. What is the “home” to which Beth returns, with her
children and Toot, at the close of the film?
Resources
www.flf.com/warriors/index.html
www.inform.umd.edu/EdRes/Topic/Wom…udies/FilmReviews/once-were-warriors-star
www.inform.umd.edu/EdRes/Topic/Wom…udies/FilmReviews/once-were-warriors-fuchs
http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-movie960406-267.story
http://www.film.u-net.com/Movies/Reviews/Once_Warrriors.html
Adah, Anthony. “Post-and Re-Colonizing Aoteaora Screen.” Film Criticism 25. 3 (Spring 2001) : 46-58.
Calder, Peter. “Would-Be Warriors.” Film in Aotearoa New Zealand. Eds. Jonathan Dennis and Jan Bieringa.. 2nd ed.
Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1996. 183-194.
Cinema
of Unease. Dir.
Sam Neill and Judy Rymer.
Videocassette. 1995.
(Variant title:
Personal Journey by Sam
Neill. A personal
journey and an excellent
history of New Zealand
film. Part of the
Century of Cinema series
of films)
Duff, Alan. Once Were
Warriors. Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press,
1994.
Glahn, Karen. “A Self-Critical
Maori.”. World Press
Review. 43. 5 (May
1996) : 44-5.
McKenzie, Stuart.
“Warrior Cast: Interview
With L. Tamahori.”
Artforum International.
33 (Feb 1995) : 64-7
Molloy, Maureen. “Death
and the Maiden: the Feminine
and the Nation in Recent
New Zealand Films.”
Signs. 25. 1 (Autumn
1999) : 153-70.
Patterson, Alex. “Warrior
Woman.” Village Voice.
40.9 (Feb 28, 1995)
:72.
Pihama, Leonie. Repositioning
Maori Representation: Contextualizing
Once Were Warriors.” Film
in
Aotearoa New Zealand.
Eds. Jonathan Dennis
and Jan Bieringa.. 2nd ed.
Wellington: Victoria University
Press, 1996. 191-194.
Sklar, Robert. “Social
Realism With Style.”
Cineaste. 21.3 (Jul 1995)
: 25-7.
Thompson, Christina.
“Alan Duff: the Book, the
Film, the Interview.”
Meanjin. 54. 1 (1995) :
6-13.
Thornley, Davina.
“White, Brown, or Coffee?
Revisioning Race in Tamahori’s
Once Were Warriors.”
FilmCriticism. 25.
3 (Spring 2001) : 22-36.
What Becomes of the Broken
Hearted? Dir. Ian
Mune. Videocassette.
1999.
(sequel to Once Were
Warriors)
Alleva, Richard. “Way Down Under.” Commonweal. 122. 12
(June 16 1995) : 16- 17.
Ansen, David. “Once Were Warriors.” Newsweek. 125 (Mar
6 1995) : 68.
Brunette, Peter. “In New Zealand, this Film Beats ‘Jurassic Park’.”
New York Times. Section 2. 144.
49977 (Feb 19 1995) :13.
Conlogue, Ray. “Modern Day Maoris.” World Press Review. 42:
1 (Jan 1995) : 50.
Corliss, Richard. “Toxic Love.” Time. 145 (March 6 1995) :
102.
Francke, Lizzie. “Once Were Warriors.” Sight and Sound. 5
(Apr 1995) : 50 –1.
Gump, James. O. “Once Were Warriors.” The American Historical Review.
100 (Oct 1995) : 1217-9.
Howe,Desson. “Once Were Warriors.” Washington Post.
(March 3, 1995).
“Once Were Warriors.” The New Republic. 212 (March 27
1995) : 28.
Turan, Kenneth. “ ‘Warriors’: a Troubling Postcard From New Zealand.”
Los Angeles Times. (Mar 3
1995).
Contributor
Jo Seton, who has a Ph.D. in English from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee,
is Australian, but also lived many years in New Zealand. She has long
had an interest in the film industry in both countries. She worked for
the New Zealand Film Archive in its early years, along with various other
national cultural institutions in New Zealand. Currently she lives in
a small town in the United States. She gets nostalgic about the Antipodes
on the rare occasions on which she gets to see a movie from that part
of the world.
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