Once Were Warriors (1994)
(On TV, April 2019) There’s a good reason why Once Were Warriors remains a landmark of New Zealand cinema even twenty-five years later: It’s a harsh -at times unbearable—film, but it makes a few fundamental points about cultural disconnection and how social policy failures can have real, personal, and violent impacts. The story revolves around a Maori couple that leaves their village to go live in Auckland, but (eighteen years later) find themselves in desperate circumstances with the father of the family unemployed and alcoholic, his rage often manifesting itself in physical violence against his wife. Tough but compelling, it’s a film that hasn’t really aged, and remains relevant well outside New Zealand—as a Canadian, it’s impossible to watch the film and not feel the social indictment of government policies (some of them well-meaning, other decidedly less so) that end up separating First Nation people from their culture. It’s only, suggests the film, by reconnecting to traditions that there is hope. Once Were Warriors is extremely difficult to watch: the very realistic scenes of domestic violence are infuriating and nausea-inducing at once, with even worse material coming up later on. I’m impressed at how director Lee Tamahori was able to make a film that’s expressionistic and realist at once, combining impressive cinematic sequences with very humble moment showing familiar patterns of broken promises, commonplace abuse, casual use of violence and aimless lives. With all due respects to Rena Owen who plays the anchor of the story, this is Temuera Morrison’s film: he embodies charm and violence in a character that’s as magnetic as repellent. The film does have a strange relationship with violence, though—one of Once Were Warriors’ final scenes has a villain getting a much-deserved comeuppance, and now we’re cheering for the blows to land hard. Still, there’s a lot to digest in terms of themes and wider implications: it’s fast paced, seldom boring and some good visuals along the way. You will seldom see a film as hard to watch yet compelling and even admirable.
