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Deborah Walker-Morrison | University of Auckland<\/p>\n
A Place to Stand: Land and Water in M\u0101ori Film<\/h4>\n
As M\u0101ori we describe ourselves as tangata whenua<\/em>, \u201cpeople of the land.\u201d When we introduce ourselves in an official setting, we begin with the name of our waka<\/em> or canoe, one of the fleets of vessels that carried our ancestors on routes across the Pacific from Hawaiki (Raiatea, French Polynesia) to Aotearoa, around 1100 AD, some seven hundred years before the arrival of the Pakeha.[1]<\/a> We also give the name of our iwi<\/em> (tribe(s)), hapu<\/em> (sub-tribal grouping(s)) and details of our whakapapa<\/em> (ancestry). But before naming people, we name our maunga<\/em> and awa<\/em> or moana<\/em>, the mountain and river or lake that attach each hapu<\/em> to a specific place, our geographical roots, our t\u016brangawaewae <\/em>or \u201cPlace to Stand.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n The history of colonisation in this country, as elsewhere, has been largely a story of uprooting and dispossession. The nation\u2019s founding document, Te Tiriti \u014d Waitangi, signed in 1840 between representatives of the English Crown and iwi<\/em>, while thought by M\u0101ori signatories to guarantee their peoples\u2019 sovereign rights and possession of taonga<\/em> or resources (including land and water), was ignored for 150 years marked by armed conflict (the Land Wars 1845-72) and ongoing despoliation and loss (see R. Walker\u00a0 1990). M\u0101ori politics and arts, including literature and film, in this country, as elsewhere, have always been\u2013\u2013inevitably\u2013\u2013\u201cabout\u201d this central loss of geographical, socio-economic, cultural and spiritual roots. But they are also, more importantly, about regaining our \u201cplace,\u201d about routes of return and revival.<\/p>\n This article proposes that representations of land and water in M\u0101ori cinema can be closely linked to the twin concepts of roots and routes proposed by Paul Gilroy (1993) in his groundbreaking study of transatlantic black identities and modernity. I use Gilroy\u2019s transnational, diasporic metaphor of routes, in an indigenous M\u0101ori context, as connected to the element of water and signifying cultural return, conceptual mobility, spirituality and individual or collective change. Where Gilroy uses the chronotope of the sailing ship to discuss the initial traumatic displacement and subsequent journeys of discovery of blacks across the Atlantic, I use that of the waka<\/em> or canoe (which can also translate as vehicle\/car) to reference the historical voyages of M\u0101ori ancestors across the Pacific to Aotearoa and contemporary voyages within and around the land. Secondly, for indigenous peoples such as Maori, colonization occupies a (loosely) similar position to that of slavery for Blacks in Gilroy\u2019s work and results in its own particular experiences of double consciousness (the generally painful, potentially empowering experience of living more than one racial and cultural identity). Thirdly, I read the metaphor of roots (which, in Gilroy, loosely signifies the distant original African homeland and its multiple traditions) as relating to the M\u0101ori relationship to the land we have inhabited for some 900 years, and to our resulting position as tangata whenua<\/em>, people of the land, even or especially when this relationship has been and continues to be disrupted, via colonisation and its postcolonial aftershocks. It is important to note that in the films I discuss (in M\u0101ori terms, as with other Pacific and indigenous peoples), paired elements such as land and water \/ roots and routes, appear to function somewhat differently to Western traditions, as complementary poles rather than as mutually exclusive opposites or Derridean binaries, with one term always already privileged over the other, both terms subsequently collapsing into one another. While the two can often be seen to merge, one element (land) or related set of terms and metaphors (roots, house, situated identity, life force) does not exclude, oppose, sit in a hierarchical relationship with, or collapse into the other (water, canoe, fluidity, voyage, transformation, renewal) (Walker-Morrison and Ramsay 237). Thus the discovery of new routes, new ways of being and doing, can lead to a re-discovery of roots, a reinvention of traditional identity and creation of a third space.<\/p>\n The following discussion outlines the interplay of these related concepts at work in a corpus of four fiction films, from the first M\u0101ori features of the 1980s (Ng\u0101ti<\/em>, Barclay 1987; Mauri<\/em>, Mita 1988) to the popular successes of the 1990s (Once were Warriors<\/em>, Tamahori 1994) and following decade (Whale Rider<\/em>, Caro 2002). My working definition of M\u0101ori cinema as cinema which tells M\u0101ori stories, written by M\u0101ori, using M\u0101ori actors, and\/or directors, producers and crew, thus includes features directed and made by Pakeha and\/or European (co-) producers, however problematic the involvement of these cultural outsiders may be considered in some quarters.<\/p>\n I begin with the fiction feature which really put M\u0101ori filmmaking on the local and international map: the biggest grossing film in NZ film history until Jackson\u2019s Lord of The Rings<\/em> trilogy (2001-2003): director Lee Tamahori and scriptwriter Rewia Brown\u2019s\u00a0Once <\/em>Were Warriors<\/em>, (1994) after Alan Duff\u2019s 1990 novel of the same name. Warriors<\/em> screened at Cannes, won awards at local and international festivals, was met with widespread critical applause and made $NZ25 million at the international box office.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n The film opens with a seven second static shot of an idyllic rural landscape: pasture lands, framed by snow-topped mountains, reflected in a calm, blue lake. The soundtrack is of a different age, murmuring voices and haunting, flute-like instrumentals.[4]<\/a> A spectator viewing the scene for the first time in 2013, post Jackson\u2019s Tolkien adaptations, might almost expect to meet the odd wizard or a hobbit or two… But no, as Tamahori\u2019s camera pulls back, the scene is revealed to be a contemporary one; however, this is no pastoral paradise but a billboard illusion planted beside a screaming motorway and neighbouring suburban slum (see fig. 1a and 1b). Through this opening \u201cshot,\u201d Tamahori clearly establishes the cruel contrast between the tourist myth (reinvigorated by Air New Zealand\u2019s recent re-branding of Aotearoa as Middle Earth) and the ugly realities of urban life for working-class M\u0101ori.[5]<\/a> Moreover, the billboard advertises a fictitious power company, ENZ Power, whose name references the privatisations of state-owned assets, begun in the 1980s and recently renewed by the current new-right government. Such policies have generally not led to economic prosperity for M\u0101ori, as the film graphically demonstrates.<\/p>\n Fig. 1b Urban living<\/p>\n The route to the Pakeha city has been no Yellow Brick Road. There is no land, no water, no place for urban M\u0101ori to stand in corporate NZ. During the ensuing expository prologue, a graffiti tagged on a wrecked car gives the name of the first modern M\u0101ori protest movement, Ng\u0101 Tama Toa<\/em> (The Young Warriors), which lobbied aggressively from the early 1970s for the return of M\u0101ori lands and the recognition and revival of M\u0101ori language and cultural institutions. In this context, the almost schizophrenic, sociopathic rage that inhabits the film\u2019s male protagonist, Jake \u201cThe Muss\u201d (Temuera Morrison), reads unambiguously, as springing from a dysfunctional urban environment and concomitant loss of cultural values and identity.[6]<\/a> Moreover, physical strength, the foundation of hegemonic M\u0101ori masculinity,[7]<\/a> is no longer a valued commodity in the workplace under late capitalism, and Jake is unemployed. Unable to play the traditional masculine roles of protector and provider, cut off from his language, his culture, and his land, Jake has become \u201ca slave to your fists, to the drink\u201d as his battered but feisty wife, Beth (Rena Owen) retorts. Jake\u2019s moral impotence is further highlighted when his eldest son, Nig (Julian Arahanga), joins a gang and the second son, Boogie (Taungaroa Emile), is sent away to a remand home. In a pivotal scene, the family hires a car and goes on a day trip to visit Boogie, stopping on the way by a lake. In the distance, between land and water, Beth points out her family\u2019s marae<\/em> (geographical locus of traditional community), her t\u016brangawaewae<\/em>, bathed in a nostalgic, almost mythical haze. Mythical for the children, for whom the marae<\/em> is an unvisited homeland, nostalgic for Beth. Not so for Jake: we learn that because he is of a lower, \u201cslave\u201d caste, Beth\u2019s family refused the marriage so the young couple eloped to the city and her children have never visited their mother\u2019s (and their) whenua tuturu.<\/em>[8]<\/a> Rigid adherence by older generations to certain traditional values (caste system) is thus a contributor to social dislocation.[9]<\/a> The film downplays this element of Duff\u2019s novel;[10]<\/a> in Rewia Brown\u2019s screenplay, it is economic marginalization, loss of cultural identity and separation from the land that pull the Heke family into a destructive, downward spiral of double-consciousness, dysfunction and delinquency. \u201cEmbodying the (debated) statistics of \u2018M\u0101ori socio-economic disparity\u2019\u201d (Chapple 2000), the family embarks on a path of destruction caused by poverty, unemployment, alcoholism, domestic violence, sexual abuse and gang activity\u201d (Martens 10).[11]<\/a> Moreover, the film rewrites and amplifies Duff\u2019s counterpoint theme of cultural renaissance, first and foremost in the character of M\u0101ori social worker Bennett (George Henare), whose \u201cjob\u201d is to teach the audience\u2013\u2013through Jake\u2019s wayward teenage son\u2013\u2013how masculine energy may be channeled into non-threatening forms of controlled, ritualized \u201cviolence\u201d through traditional cultural practice, i.e. taiaha <\/em>and haka<\/em> (M\u0101ori martial arts and dance).<\/p>\n The character of Bennett, who navigates easily between both worlds, enables Warriors<\/em> to begin the process of positive return to traditional, community-based roots, which will be taken up by Beth. But the film also demonstrates how tragically overdue is such a return for many M\u0101ori, since it is precipitated by Boogie\u2019s incarceration and the suicide of daughter Grace (Mamaengaroa Kerr-Bell), victim of sexual abuse by a trusted family member and close friend of her father\u2019s (Cliff Curtis). The family (minus Jake) returns to Beth\u2019s marae<\/em> for Grace\u2019s tangi <\/em>(funeral). Tamahori introduces the scene via a sound bridge of women\u2019s voices uttering a karanga<\/em> (ritual women\u2019s chant, calling visitors onto a marae<\/em>) over a medium close-up of Beth in her suburban state-house kitchen, as if calling her back to her people. In a slow dissolve, Beth\u2019s face and upper body are momentarily superimposed on a low angle medium close-up of the carved guardian standing atop the wharenui<\/em> (meeting house), thus re-establishing the connection between Beth and her birthplace and announcing her future role as guardian of her wh\u0101nau <\/em>(family). Silhouetted against a clear blue sky, the brightness of the image contrasts poignantly with the funeral scenes that follow (see fig. 2) as the camera tracks down to the wharenui<\/em>, cuts to the massed mourners arriving with the casket, watching over Grace\u2019s body, performing a haka<\/em> in her honor before her burial by the lakeside.<\/p>\n Fig. 2 Funeral scene<\/p>\n It is the return to this space, to her t\u016brangawaewae<\/em>, that gives Beth the strength to leave her dysfunctional marriage and effect her own cultural rebirth, for herself and her children, declaring as the film ends: \u201cOur people, once were warriors. They had mana<\/em>, pride, People with spirit.\u201d The film remains important in many senses, in articulating the devastating consequences of dispossession but also, in that \u201cBeth\u2019s pathway from victim to leadership reflects the passage of women taking leadership roles in the M\u0101ori renaissance of the 1980s\u201d (Joyce 163).<\/p>\n Issues of central importance to the individual and community are always played out in relation to land and water as one\u2019s Place to Stand. The community is rooted in this very literal sense, but also a dimension of metaphorical fluidity is introduced through the element of water, closely linked to spirituality\u2013\u2013the word wairua<\/em>, \u201cspirit\u201d contains the word wai<\/em>, \u201cwater.\u201d The central body of water may be a lake (Warriors<\/em>) or river (e.g. River Queen<\/em>, Vincent Ward, 2005) but because most films about M\u0101ori (whether directed by M\u0101ori or not) are set in coastal locations, water becomes most closely associated with the sea, as food \/ life source and as connection to ancestral and spiritual homelands.<\/p>\n Apart from Jackson\u2019s blockbuster Tolkien adaptations, Nicky Caro\u2019s screen interpretation of acclaimed M\u0101ori writer, Witi Ihimaera\u2019s (The<\/em>) Whale Rider<\/em> has been New Zealand cinema\u2019s most successful feature internationally since the turn of the millennium. Voted People\u2019s Choice<\/em> at the Toronto International Film Festival<\/em>, the film won 29 international awards and twelve year-old female lead, Keisha Castle-Hughes was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress<\/em> in 2002.<\/p>\n Set in the small, contemporary, M\u0101ori coastal community of Whangara (birthplace of Ihimaera and setting for the novel), the film tells how a young girl, Pai Apirana struggles to convince her Koro, grandfather and local chief (Rawiri Paratene, see fig. 3a and 3b), against centuries of patriarchal tradition, that she is the new leader he is seeking for his people. Pai knows she has been chosen for this role because of the strong connection she has with the whales which are her iwi<\/em>\u2019s guardians (the first ancestor, Paikea, from whom she is a direct descendant, having arrived in Aotearoa, riding on the back of a whale). The dramatic climax sees a score of whales strand themselves on the local beach, while the community struggle in vain to save them. When all appears lost, Pai rides the leader of the pod back out to sea and the others follow.<\/p>\n As a film about roots (the centuries of communal experience and tradition that bind the community to the land) and routes (those that first carried the ancestors across the Pacific and those that carry their descendents away from and back to the land), Whale Rider<\/em> mobilises key tropes in M\u0101ori film and literature. Caro\u2019s film follows Ihimaera\u2019s novel in advocating for the possibility of cultural revival while rejecting unquestioning adherence to tradition: the patriarchal division of labour in the form of exclusive male leadership and rights over traditional knowledge. Crucially also, both refuse a Manicheistic attitude towards their characters, inviting empathy or aroha<\/em> for both the character of Pai, as a young girl having to assert herself against the patriarchal authority of the man she most loves and admires; and also for her Koro, as a leader who believes he is doing his best for his community. In the film, if Pai\u2019s voiceover narration privileges her position, shot reverse shot sequences emphasise reciprocity and dialogue, and Caro\u2019s use of point of view camera is extended to all the main characters, including Koro. Moreover, early scenes demonstrate a more endearing side to this stubborn patriarch: the old man\u2019s love for his granddaughter is revealed when we see him riding her home from school on the cross bar of his bicycle, laughing and joking with her, later responding to her curiosity about tribal history.[12]<\/a><\/p>\n Figs. 3a & 3b Rawiri Paratene, Pai\u2019s Koro<\/em> (grandfather)<\/p>\n Following the novel, Caro\u2019s camera constructs an intergenerational bond which Koro\u2019s conscious mind, in its obsessive search for a male heir, refuses for most of the film.<\/p>\n The film also suggests that it is Koro\u2019s intransigence that has driven away his elder son, Porourangi (Cliff Curtis). Unwilling to take on the traditional mantle of leadership for which his father has destined him, uprooted also by the death in childbirth of his wife and first son (Pai\u2019s twin), Porourangi (named after the \u201coriginal\u201d paramount chief of the eponymous iwi, Ng\u0101ti Porou, to which Ng\u0101ti Konohi belong) has left Aotearoa for Europe, to pursue his chosen profession as a sculptor. Indeed we learn that, like M\u0101ori artist Brett Graham who provided sculptures for the film and numerous others, the route to Europe has been a productive one, and Porourangi has established something of an international reputation for himself. Koro\u2019s scathing, traditionalist dismissal of his son\u2019s modernist inflected artwork as mere souvenirs serves to drive the two further apart. Moreover, the severing of Porourangi\u2019s connection to the land and the tribe\u2019s current lack of direction are given visual form in his half-finished waka<\/em>, abandoned after the tragic circumstances surrounding Pai\u2019s birth. This plotline, an invention of the filmscript, enables Caro to set up the possibility of redemptive return: Pai\u2019s near-death experience prompting her father to complete the waka<\/em> and (by extension) take up a key role in the community that is in tune with his own aspirations and talent.<\/p>\n Koro\u2019s younger son, Rawiri, is similarly seen to have been driven away by his father\u2019s single-minded obsession to find a male successor: as second son, his M\u0101ori martial arts talents remain unrecognized, and he has sunk into a lifestyle of drug and alcohol induced apathy. Thus, despite never having left the community, in a spiritual sense he has become cut off from his roots, through a combination of unemployment and filial disaffection. It is by becoming a mentor to Pai and by leading the community in their attempt to rescue the stranded whales that he will regain his place to stand.<\/p>\n As many commentators (e.g. Gauthier, Gonick, Message, Morris) have noted, the film is firmly rooted in its M\u0101ori community, with many scenes situated in the communal spaces of marae<\/em>, wharenui<\/em> (meeting house) and wharekai <\/em>(dining hall). In keeping with the exploration of the tensions between tradition (roots) and change (routes), both spaces are the setting for customary, community-based ways of being and doing (local school concerts, communal meals, Koro\u2019s revival of traditional martial arts and chiefly knowledge) and the questioning of tradition (Pai\u2019s refusal to sit at the back of the marae atea<\/em> (open space in front of the wharenui<\/em>) because she is a girl[13]<\/a>; her pursuit of forbidden knowledges and besting of Koro\u2019s favoured contender). It is significant that Pai\u2019s dramatic speech, which outlines her own and her community\u2019s collective past and her democratic vision for its future (\u201cWe can learn that if the knowledge is given to everyone, we can have lots of leaders and soon everyone will be strong. Not just the one being chosen\u201d), will be delivered (in traditional dress) in the space of the wharenui <\/em>(Gonnick 314), thus revealing the latter\u2019s pivotal role as both traditional and transformational space.<\/p>\n Emphasising also the transformational role of water, the film stages the key test of the young boys Koro has chosen as contenders to succeed him at sea. Addressing the boys with a local proverb, Koro declares: \u201cHe rei ng\u0101 niho, he par\u0101oa ng\u0101 kauae<\/em>,\u201d which translates as \u201cif you want to wield the whale\u2019s tooth, you must first have the jaw of a whale\u201d: leadership requires great strength. Koro then tosses overboard the whale tooth pendant he wears as a symbol of his own leadership and connection to the ancestral Whale Rider, Paikea. After the boys\u2019 failure to retrieve the taonga<\/em> (treasure), Koro sinks into depression, following which it will, of course, be Pai who retrieves the tooth of the whale and who will demonstrate that she possesses the jawbone required to wield it.<\/p>\n The central drama plays out on the shore, where land and water meet. The stranding of the whales, spiritual guardians of the iwi<\/em>, can be read as the result of, and a visual metaphor for the grandfather\u2019s intransigence. The fluidity of tradition is restored as the grandfather comes finally to accept the legitimacy of his granddaughter Pai\u2019s future leadership. This concept is embodied, firstly, in Pai\u2019s riding of the lead whale, who heads back out to sea, taking her on a journey which doubles that of her ancestor, before subsequently rendering her back to her people.<\/p>\n Secondly, the metaphor of water as movement and change is embodied in the final scene (not present in the book), as the iwi <\/em>paddle out on a glittering sea, on Porourangi\u2019s\u00a0 beautifully restored waka<\/em> \u201cmanned\u201d by both men and women, towards a fluid future that has renewed its connection to its past (see fig. 4). As Cineaste<\/em> reviewer Paula Morris notes, the final scene \u201csuggests the beginning of a journey as great as the Pacific voyages of old. The purpose this time isn’t to find new land, but to create a new world in the place where they live\u201d (18).<\/p>\n Fig. 4 Porourangi\u2019s waka<\/em><\/p>\n The concept of water as a source of physical and intellectual mobility, spiritual connection and renewal, indeed as a kind of third space, takes on deep resonance here. While the film ends on an open question mark as to what type of economic enterprises will enable the people to move forward, a positive reading of its narrative resolution would argue that Pai\u2019s role in the return of the artist Porourangi, in the rehabilitation of his younger brother, Rawiri, in the opening of Koro to the possibility of change, and in the mobilisation of the entire community catalyzes multiple routes for iwi<\/em> to collectively navigate new routes between modernity and tradition.[14]<\/a><\/p>\n As well as the superb performance by its young female lead, the wild beauty of the film\u2019s coastal setting, its feel-good ending and astute visual story-telling (combining M\u0101ori ways of being with universal themes) made it a hit with audiences and critics, locally and internationally. Even sceptical M\u0101ori academic, Brendan Hokowhitu, had to admit that \u201cindigenous people from around the world have embraced the film\u201d (133). Still, echoing the reception of Warriors<\/em>, the film provoked fierce debate. Veteran M\u0101ori filmmaker Barry Barclay (whose work and influence I will discuss presently), angered that the film had been directed and scripted by a Pakeha, made by a largely Pakeha crew, and co-produced with an eye to targeting international commercial markets, dismissed Whale Rider<\/em> as \u201cindigenous film for beginners\u201d (in Calder A2). In my view, the judgment is overly harsh, particularly given the endorsement of Caro\u2019s work by Ihimaera (also executive co-producer), and given the enthusiastic involvement of highly respected M\u0101ori actors and the local community.[15]<\/a> Nonetheless, one cannot but share Barclay\u2019s (and others\u2019) disappointment that the film was not made with greater involvement by M\u0101ori filmmakers. Moreover, the influence of the German co-producer on the story line is evident in the invention of a pregnant German girlfriend for Porourangi, who appears suddenly on the beach in the final sequence, as the waka<\/em> is launched. Although she thankfully has no speaking part, her character, clearly designed to enable the German target audience to insert themselves into an uplifting story about indigenous eco-friendliness and cultural revival, detracts somewhat from the local authenticity of the story.[16]<\/a> Reliance on foreign, first-world capital can have problematic implications for the integrity of local and indigenous filmmaking. Nonetheless, in spite of these shortcomings, it remains my view that Whale Rider<\/em> constructs an experience which is not only respectful and worthy of its M\u0101ori source text, its culture and community, it is also an empowering one. As Marnina Gonick\u00a0(and others) have argued, \u201c…in adapting and blending traditional ways of knowing, generic cinema conventions and oral cultural sources, the film engages in a politics of re-imagination\u201d (308), \u201ceffecting a decolonizing of the screen\u201d (315). I would add that, through and beyond its feminist (re-) configuration of M\u0101ori agentic subjectivity, the film\u2019s mobilisation of the tropes of land and water, roots and routes, suggest productive ways in which iwi<\/em> can negotiate a third space between tradition and modernity.<\/p>\n In the following sections, I want to suggest that Warriors<\/em>, Whale Rider <\/em>and other contemporary M\u0101ori films refer back, explicitly or implicitly to the roots of M\u0101ori cinema: the work of pioneer documentary filmmakers, teachers and cultural activists Merata Mita and Barry Barclay,[17]<\/a> both one-time members of Ng\u0101 Tama Toa, who (co-) wrote and directed the first two M\u0101ori full-length fiction features. Shot more or less simultaneously, Ng\u0101ti<\/em> (1987) and Mauri<\/em> (1988) stand as major landmarks of the M\u0101ori cultural renaissance which began to gain momentum in the mid 1970s. Both films use similar geographical and temporal settings: small coastal communities in the post-war 1950s, the period which saw thousands of young M\u0101ori follow difficult routes, leaving their economically struggling rural birthplace to seek employment in the Pakeha towns. Both filmmakers use the medium of fiction film to document M\u0101ori realities, using M\u0101ori actors, settings, technicians, music and narrative methodologies, to \u201cdecolonize the screen\u201d as Merata described it (Mita 49); inventing a philosophy of indigenous filmmaking which Barclay would term \u201cFourth Cinema\u201d [18]<\/a> and which would \u201cshow the way\u201d for indigenous filmmakers the world over.<\/p>\n The title, Mauri<\/em>, meaning life force, emphasizes the spiritual connection to land and water and the importance of birth place and ancestral connection to land in the establishment of identity. T\u016brangwaewae<\/em>, one\u2019s Place to Stand, is most often synonymous with one\u2019s place of birth (or the birthplace of one\u2019s tipuna<\/em> or ancestors), one\u2019s whenua t\u016bturu<\/em>, originary or true home. The film embodies this kaupapa<\/em> (theme) from its opening scenes of traditional birthing practice, which demands that the umbilical cord and placenta be returned to the earth, tying the child to its roots in the Land.<\/p>\n This ceremony is instigated and performed by the film\u2019s central character, kuia<\/em> (grandmother or wise woman) Kara (Eva Rickard), who is bringing up her young granddaughter, Awatea (Rangimarie Delamare). Her family\u2019s land has been lost through a miscarriage of Pakeha justice and deviously purchased by her now senile Pakeha neighbour, Semmons (Geoff Murphy). The multiple narrative threads coalesce around the return of her son, Rewi (Anzac Wallace), after an absence of twenty years. Rewi provides support but Kara\u2019s attempts to persuade him to marry her beautiful niece, Ramiri (Susan Paul), are in vain. This is a troubled man with a dark secret. Not until the final act of the film is the mystery unveiled: he is an impostor and an escaped prisoner, Paki Hemap\u014d, who stole the identity of Rewi R\u0101pana, when the latter was killed in a car accident while attempting to return home. On her deathbed, Kara instructs the now fugitive Paki to return to the scene of his \u201ccrime,\u201d where he disposed of Rewi\u2019s body, and seek forgiveness.<\/p>\n The film stages the theme of colonial land theft and restitution through characterisation and plot, dialogues, casting and mise en sc\u00e8ne. Played by fellow director Geoff Murphy, Mita\u2019s long-time partner in life and art (also co-producer of Mauri<\/em>), Semmons is a wildly and humorously exaggerated caricature, a point which has been lost on most Pakeha reviewers, even those who have been highly sympathetic to the film (Shepard 122). The construction of Semmons evokes Gilroy\u2019s reading of Frederick Douglass\u2019 inversion of Hegel\u2019s master-slave dialectic: \u201c[it] is the slave rather than the master who emerges from Douglass\u2019s account possessed of \u2018consciousness that exists for itself,\u2019 while the master becomes representative of a \u2018consciousness that is repressed within itself\u2019\u201d (60). While Semmons clearly embodies the crazed, repressed nature of white racism, greed and colonial land theft, the film attempts to circumvent over-generalizing of the character, firstly via humour, but more importantly, by making a point of not visiting the sins of the father(s) on the son. Au contraire, Steve Semmons (James Hayward), the opposite of his father in every way, is respectful of local M\u0101ori, falls in love with Ramiri, marries her and returns the land. Secondly, the casting of veteran activist Eva Rickard as Kara, fiercely nurturing mother figure of the community, already connects the character with the \u201cland question.\u201d Merata underscores this in a long, fifty second, static shot-sequence of Awatea and Kara setting off for a tangi<\/em>, during which Kara talks about her own imminent passing. The scene explicitly evokes Dame Whina Cooper\u2019s historic hikoi<\/em> or Land March of 1975. Attracting more than 60,000 supporters and 5,000 walkers, who walked the length of the North Island to the Parliament Buildings in Wellington, \u201cin a powerful and innovative way, the land march embodied M\u0101ori protest over ongoing land alienation\u201d (Royal). The hikoi <\/em>raised awareness of the injustice of colonial misappropriation of M\u0101ori lands and ushered in an ongoing process of restitution. The most enduring archival image of this historical event shows kuia<\/em> Whina in the same position as Merata shoots Kara \/ Rickard, from behind, walking along a country road, supporting herself with a walking stick, hand in hand with a young child.<\/p>\n Land and water are intimately related to the spiritual cycle of life and death. Being cut off from the land thus signifies spiritual impoverishment. We see this in the character of Paki, whom Merata describes as an allegory or parable about \u201cthe schizophrenic existence of so many M\u0101ori in Pakeha society\u201d (Mita 49)\u00a0His attempted return is compromised because he has stolen another\u2019s identity: the price must be paid for his transgression, not so much of Pakeha law (attempted theft of money in a bank robbery gone wrong), but of M\u0101ori law: the theft of Rewi\u2019s \u201cPlace.\u201d[19]<\/a><\/p>\n The final sequence intercuts shots of Kara\u2019s dying moments, her funeral procession, her granddaughter running to a hilltop to wave her Nanny\u2019s spirit on its way, the expiation and surrender of the fugitive, Paki. It is no coincidence that Merata shot this latter scene at dawn, at the water\u2019s edge, place of spiritual cleansing. The protagonist is framed against a rock face: wrists crossed, eyes closed, chanting prayers, imploring the spirit of the dead man, the ancestors and living community he has wronged. As if in response, a sound bridge overlays the end of the first scene with the chanting of tribal leader, H\u0113mi (Sonny Waru), watching over the dying Kara with a group of loved ones. Intercutting continues until Paki completes his mission of rendering the dead man\u2019s possessions to the sea, upon which Kara expires and Awatea, who has been watching through a window, turns to run up the hill Kara has told her will be her route to the spirit world. When we cut back to Paki, the ensuing scene contains no dialogue, the soundtrack composed entirely of his sobbing and the gentle lapping of the cleansing sea around the rocks. As two M\u0101ori policemen arrive to take him into custody, the elder (Don Selwyn) approaches, takes his hands and the two hongi<\/em> (press noses in the traditional M\u0101ori greeting), exchanging breath in a gesture of mutual recognition and respect. Unable to take Paki into custody himself, he leaves it to his younger colleague[20]<\/a> to handcuff the prisoner\u2019s extended wrists. Cut to a medium close-up of Paki gazing skyward, holding his arms aloft until we hear the click of the cuffs like a prison door closing. This sound cues another abrupt cut, but not to a prison cell. Instead we see a kotuku<\/em> (heron) in majestic flight against a clear blue sky, as if the bird has been summoned by this final act of supplication. The cut takes us from imprisonment to freedom, suggesting forgiveness and redemption for the troubled male protagonist.<\/p>\n The kotuku<\/em> is traditionally considered to accompany the spirit of the dead (especially in the case of a chief or other respected community member) on its journey north, to the tip of the island, to Te Reinga, the leaping off place, from where it makes the long journey across the Pacific, to the originary homelands of Hawaiki nui, Hawaiki roa, Hawaiki P\u0101m\u0101mao (Hawaiki the great, the long, the far-distant) and the Spirit World, Te P\u014d<\/em> (the Night). The scene then cuts back to Kara\u2019s tangi<\/em>, the group of mourners solemnly crossing the paddocks, now filmed with an aerial camera, in a bird\u2019s eye \/ spirit-eye view. Meanwhile, the soundtrack is gradually filled with a soft lament, Maringiringi noa nga roimata<\/em> \/ \u201cOur tears flow unchecked,\u201d the words which Kara has previously recited to Paki and which are also the film\u2019s theme song. Aerial shots alternate with circular, close-framed, high angle shots of the young Awatea standing on the hilltop, tearfully gazing skywards towards us as she waves her grandmother\u2019s scarf in a final farewell (see fig. 5).<\/p>\n A masterful combination of mise en sc\u00e8ne, montage and subjective camera align the spectator with both the kotuku<\/em> and the departed kuia<\/em>. Graeme Cowley\u2019s sweeping, circular, aerial cinematography takes the spectator on the spirit journey over land and sea; flying northwards but looking back, ensuring and reaffirming that the mauri <\/em>of the community lives on, symbolically invested in the young girl whose name, Awatea, means dawn.<\/p>\n Fig. 5 Awatea upon the hilltop<\/p>\n We see Merata not simply drawing on the symbolism of the kotuku<\/em> as spirit guide here, but imbuing it with multiple meanings which her subjective, winged camera, breathtaking land- and seascapes, and Hirini Melbourne\u2019s poignant, mounting musical score elevate to the level of what can only be described as the cinematic sublime (Freeland).\u00a0Imprisonment and surrender become liberation, redemption; the pain of death, separation, tears of loss become spiritual journey, the route back to the originary homeland, while the mauri<\/em> or life-force of the community, its rooted connection with the land, is renewed.<\/p>\n Barry Barclay\u2019s first fiction feature, Ng\u0101ti<\/em>, 1987, is \u201c…widely credited as being the first fiction feature by a member of an Indigenous community\u201d (Murray 1). Ng\u0101ti<\/em> (tribe, people) is set in 1948, in post-war rural NZ, in a small (fictitious) coastal community similar to that of Mauri<\/em>. The narrative\u2019s three interwoven plot strands enable the film to straddle several genres: romance, family melodrama, and what, in European terms, might be best described as neo-realist social drama. In the romance \/ melodrama plot line, a local born, Australian-raised doctor (Ross Girven) returns \u201chome\u201d for a holiday. The handsome but precocious young \u201cAussie\u201d redneck is gently \u201cre-educated\u201d by the locals, before discovering that his biological mother was M\u0101ori, then falling in love with the local (Pakeha) schoolteacher (Judy MacIntosh). The family melodrama centres on the illness of R\u014dpata (Oliver Jones), a young M\u0101ori boy dying of leukemia, and the failed attempts of the sympathetic Pakeha doctor (father of the school teacher, played by Norman Fletcher) and M\u0101ori tohunga<\/em> (healer) to cure him. The social drama plot thread turns on an impending threat to the tight-knit community when the Pakeha owners of the local freezing works (abattoir and meat processing plant) announce plans to close it down, effectively putting most of the town out of work.<\/p>\n As one would expect, Barclay\u2019s concept of indigenous Fourth Cinema is a deeply democratic \u201cof the people, by the people, for the people\u201d approach, driven by values of collaboration, community and reciprocity. It supposes syncretic, hybrid approaches to life and work which take a lead from holistic, community-focussed indigenous values and economic practice. Sympathetic, well-educated Pakeha characters in Ng\u0101ti <\/em>(the local doctor and his family) who are happily integrated within the M\u0101ori community reflect Barclay\u2019s desire that Pakeha also have their Place to Stand, within \u201c..a bi-cultural New Zealand that is fundamentally M\u0101ori in spirit\u201d (Murray 62).\u00a0This inclusive approach is suggested from the film\u2019s opening: Haere mai,<\/em> a traditional welcome song, plays over shots of an old bus, wending its way into the town, welcoming the viewer along with its newly returned son. Moreover, the \u201creturn\u201d of Aussie doctor, Greg, his discovery of his M\u0101ori ancestry and integration within the community can be read as a call, by Barclay, for a generation of mixed blood, urban M\u0101ori New Zealanders to rediscover their roots.<\/p>\n Both Mita and Barclay\u2019s films share an underlying documentary aspiration that seeks to record\u2013\u2013almost as direct-cinema\u2013\u2013the lived experience of indigenous communities, the ebb and flow of life and death, whether in documentary or fiction film. Thus, in\u00a0Ng\u0101ti <\/em>as in Mauri<\/em>, we are shown numerous scenes of (most often) communal activity (see fig. 6a and 6b): shearing, fleecing, stock-droving, fishing, gathering shellfish, eels, preparing food, singing, socialising, playing cards, eating, which serve no purpose in terms of driving the narrative, but are simply \u201cabout\u201d the work of documenting community,[21]<\/a> about \u201ccreating a visual tapestry reflecting the physical details of M\u0101ori communal life\u201d (Barclay, Our Own Image <\/em>67).[22]<\/a><\/p>\n Figs. 6a & 6b Scenes of communal activity<\/p>\n Like Merata Mita and subsequent M\u0101ori filmmakers, Barclay\u2019s passionately-held belief in indigenous rights is inseparable from a deep commitment to inclusive cultural values, economic development and self-determination. This commitment, woven into every thread of their films, with more or less overt didacticism (and the term is not pejorative in the context of indigenous filmmaking and literature), is made particularly explicit within the social-realist drama plotline of Ng\u0101ti<\/em>. As mentioned, the community is threatened with \u2018mass\u2019 unemployment by the impending closure of their local freezing works, which has become financially unviable, largely, we are told through the dialogues, because local M\u0101ori are imitating the big Pakeha farms and trucking their stock to a bigger plant further afield. As one stock drover explains: \u201cI reckon our M\u0101ori communities don\u2019t know what they\u2019re doing any more. Pakeha send their stock to the works, M\u0101ori send their stock to the works. Pakeha go fishing, bugger me days, they all go fishing.\u201d Another adds: \u201cIt\u2019s the bloody money. And to top it all off, the bloody farmers, M\u0101ori and Pakeha, they have confidence in that works down south.\u201d We then learn that there is already little work left for the local drovers, since farmers are increasingly using trucks to transport their stock to \u201cthat works down south.\u201d In other words, the community\u2019s work and well-being, its ability to sustain itself via the land, is threatened by loss of faith in its own structures, coupled with the ill-considered adoption of individualistic, capitalist Pakeha business practice. A hui <\/em>(meeting) is organised at the local marae<\/em> (see fig. 7), with a couple of company representatives, who feign sadness at having to close the works before reminding the people how much they owe the company for having provided them with employment. A radical response and solution is proposed by the recently returned daughter of war veteran community leader, Iwi (W\u012b Kuki Kaa). Standing to address both the Pakeha company men and her people, Sally (Connie Pewhairangi) retorts: \u201cI too would like to thank the company for providing employment. But the thanks shouldn\u2019t be one-sided. The company did not build its processing business here because it fell in love with the people. It built here so it could make big profits for its shareholders and directors. The company has enjoyed the sweat and labour of our people. Kapua did not need the company… Let us run our own freezing works. Our own farms, our own fisheries. Let us run them ourselves.\u201d The problem of dwindling stock numbers is solved by Sally\u2019s father, Iwi, who is the best stock manager in the region, greatly respected among both M\u0101ori and Pakeha, and who has just accepted the job of managing the biggest Pakeha\u2013owned station, on his own terms. These are: total control over every aspect of the farm\u2019s management, including the power to decide to which freezing-works the stock will be sent. Supporting his daughter, \u201cnot because she is my daughter, but because what she says makes sense,\u201d Iwi declares: \u201c…we will form an incorporation. We will buy the freezing works. We can and we will run it ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n Fig. 7 Local marae <\/em>(meeting)<\/p>\n Ng\u0101ti <\/em>has been read as a nostalgic work, and in some ways perhaps it is. Not that this is a negative term for M\u0101ori, for whom it is common to say we \u201cwalk backwards into the future\u201d i.e. with an eye on the past. More than a nostalgic work, however, Ng\u0101ti <\/em>is also a prophetic one. Firstly, the character of Iwi displays an ability to find new routes, to bend the economic tools of modernity to the service of his community in ways which also nourish their roots: in this respect (as well as in its integration of Pakeha characters into the M\u0101ori world), the film constructs its rural community as forward-looking third space. Secondly, Ng\u0101ti<\/em> acts as a prescient socio-political document, made in the early years of an ongoing process of redress of historical colonial injustices, first and foremost among which is widescale theft of land and other resources. Since the film was made, this process has seen some of the resources that were misappropriated under colonialism returned to their original tribal \u201cowners\u201d (M\u0101ori prefer the term kaitiaki<\/em>, which translates loosely as custodians). From 1990 \u2013 2006, the Crown oversaw NZ$900 million in financial settlements including the return of land and forestry, into the control of iwi<\/em>. In 2007, according to financial sources, 12% of the country\u2019s agricultural land was M\u0101ori owned. Commercial operations include farming, horticulture, viticulture, commercial forestry, gravel extraction and mining, property investments and the seafood industry. Since Ng\u0101ti<\/em>, M\u0101ori have indeed formed many economically viable incorporations. Despite setbacks and inevitable disagreements, we have shown that we can \u201crun things ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n Barclay\u2019s view of cinema was a radical vision and one which is not shared by all M\u0101ori, whether filmmakers or industry stakeholders. The production values and aesthetics of Tamahori\u2019s Once were Warriors<\/em>, Caro\u2019s German-coproduced Whale Rider<\/em>, and the younger Taika Waititi\u2019s playful, irreverent, and highly stylised popular comedies (Eagle vs Shark<\/em> 2007, Boy<\/em> 2010),[23]<\/a> to name but a few examples, are a far cry from Barclay\u2019s more unpolished, non-commercially focussed insider-asceticism. Similarly, in terms of economic models for M\u0101ori society outside of the film industry\u2013\u2013how M\u0101ori would manage the freezing works and farms and fishing rights once they gained collective ownership over them\u2013\u2013Barclay was to become critical of the corporate models often adopted by iwi<\/em> in order to manage their newly reacquired resources. There is still much healthy debate in M\u0101oridom as to the ability of culturally foreign, capitalist business models and practices to deliver the best outcomes for M\u0101ori communities, whether in the so-called culture industries or elsewhere. But whatever one\u2019s views, within the context of these ongoing debates, Barclay\u2019s body of work as a whole, and Ng\u0101ti<\/em> in particular, remains a powerful and positive encapsulation of M\u0101ori moves towards collective economic agency and responsibility.<\/p>\n Battles have been won, but the war is not over. In 2012, iwi<\/em> attempts to purchase 16 large dairy farms (in receivership) were frustrated when the right-wing government allowed the lands to be sold to a Chinese business consortium.[24]<\/a> In the same year, a M\u0101ori Council court action did not succeed in arresting plans by the same government to partially privatise state-owned hydroelectric companies which depend on the water from our rivers, recognised as taonga<\/em> (M\u0101ori treasures or resources) under the Treaty of Waitangi. M\u0101ori are heavily involved in debates over land and water that are both current and ongoing. As historian Ranginui Walker states in the title of his 1990 alternative history of Aotearoa: K\u0101 wh\u0101whai tonu m\u0101tou<\/em>, \u201cWe are still fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n For sheer reasons of space, I am aware that I have not done anything like full justice to the films and concepts I have outlined here. This overview has nonetheless attempted to demonstrate the centrality of place (land and water) to M\u0101ori narrative filmmaking. More importantly, it has argued for the importance of M\u0101ori cinema in articulating the centrality of Land and Water to an evolving sense of individual and community identity, i.e. in (re-) constructing Aotearoa as our Place to Stand. My hope is that this paper might encourage readers to take a closer look.<\/p>\n I would like to thank the two anonymous referees whose astute comments and generous suggestions pushed me to broaden and strengthen my discussion. Na reira, ng\u0101 mihi nui ki \u0101 raua.<\/em><\/p>\n [1]<\/a> M\u0101ori is the indigenous term (adjective and noun) pertaining to ourselves, the indigenous people of Aotearoa, New Zealand. Pakeha is the M\u0101ori term originally describing White settlers, now used more generally for Europeans.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> My iwi<\/em> affiliations, on my father\u2019s side, are to the R\u0101kai P\u0101ka and Ng\u0101ti Pahuwera hapu<\/em> of Ng\u0101ti K\u0101hungunu. Moumoukai is our maunga<\/em>, Te Nuhaka is our awa<\/em>, Te Manutai is our marae<\/em>.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Once were Warriors<\/em> was notably well received in France. See Walker-Morrison 2011.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> The flute is the traditional kouauau<\/em>, and the voices therefore demand to be read as those of the ancestors of the land, calling softly in a mournful, haunting lament.<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Tamahori has been criticised for subsequently reconstructing South Auckland\u2019s suburban geography with the alleged consequence of deforming or misrepresenting the social deprivation of his protagonists: \u201cThe dubbing or splicing of the physical environment in Once were Warriors <\/em>indicates a more serious deformation: the social criticism implied by the impoverished condition of this local culture is cloaked\u201d (Turner 133). My subsequent discussion presents a counter-argument.<\/p>\nRoots and Routes<\/h4>\n
No Place to Stand in Once were Warriors<\/em> (Lee Tamahori & Rewia Brown, 1994)<\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Walker-fig-1a-e1399501381342.jpg\" "\\"Walker")
<\/a><\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Walker-fig-1b-e1399501420516.jpg\" "\\"Walker")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Walker-fig-2-e1399502262335.jpg\" "\\"Walker")
<\/a><\/p>\nFluid Spaces in Whale Rider<\/em> (Niki Caro, after Witi Ihimaera, 2002)<\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Walker-fig-3a-e1399502321120.jpg\" "\\"Walker")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Walker-fig-3b-e1399502374367.jpg\" "\\"Walker")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Walker-fig-4-e1399502434746.jpg\" "\\"Walker")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe Roots of M\u0101ori Cinema: Merata Mita (1942-2010) and Barry Barclay (1944-2008)<\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Walker-fig-5-e1399502477463.jpg\" "\\"Walker")
<\/a><\/p>\nProphetic Places to Stand in Barry Barclay\u2019s Ng\u0101ti<\/em>, 1987<\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Walker-fig-6a-e1399502518891.jpg\" "\\"Walker")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Walker-fig-6b-e1399502538348.jpg\" "\\"Walker")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Walker-fig-7-e1399502585170.jpg\" "\\"Walker")
<\/a><\/p>\nAcknowledgement <\/strong><\/h4>\n
Endnotes<\/strong><\/h4>\n