RAPA NUI (1994) A Film Review Copyright Dragan Antulov 2001
At times Hollywood leaves impression of being run by lunatics, drunks and other people who lost their most basic mental abilities. This was especially the case in 1990s, when big studios pumped obscenely large amounts of money into projects that were doomed to flop from the start. Kevin Costner's WATERWORLD is usually the best known example of Hollywood's egos run amok, but the production team of Kevin Reynolds and Kevin Costner can't be accused of starting that unfortunate adventure without any sense of caution. One year before they made WATERWORLD, they tested the uncharted waters of ecological action spectacle by making somewhat less ambitious and less expensive project called RAPA NUI.
The plot of this film is based on the legends and historical speculations about Easter Island in Southeast Pacific, the most remote part of the world that was ever settled by human beings. Dutch explorers, upon discovering those islands in 1722, found impressive statues but the the local population, made of stone-age cannibalistic savages, seemed incapable of erecting them. The movie tries to give the explanation for this by setting the story few decades before the arrival of Europeans. The island is so far away from the other lands and that the descendants of Polynesian settlers forgot their roots and believe that they are the only people in the world. Lack of external conflicts doesn't mean that there aren't tensions within the community - the society is divided into two classes based on racial features - aristocratic "Long Ears" and plebeian "Short Ears". The class and racial tensions has begun to escalate because of the population explosion; the island is simply too small to provide the needs for the people. Old and senile king Ariki-mau (played by Eru Potaka-Dewes) is less concerned with those problems, because he thinks only of erecting bigger and bigger statues in order to placate gods. His grandson Naro (played by Jason Scott Lee) has other things on his mind, since he fell in love in "Short Ear" girl Ramana (played by Sandirine Holt). Love that crosses class divide happens in worst of all times, since "Short Ears" like Make (played by Esai Morales) are less and less enthusiastic about "Long Ears" rule, which slowly but inevitably paves the way for brutal civil unrest.
RAPA NUI definitely belongs to the same category as multitude of other films with strong environmental message, which used to be made during the zenith of Hollywood's "political correctness" in early to mid 1990s. What distinguishes this film from those films is the manor in which the message is delivered to the audience. Namely, filmmakers wisely chose to set the plot in a time before arrival of Europeans, thus sparing the viewers from "politically correct" cliches of evil European civilisation destroying the nature. RAPA NUI shows that less advanced native cultures, which are supposed to be more "in tune" with the nature, can be equally or even more deadly to the environment than their modern-day equivalents. What is even more remarkable about this film is the fact that the whole story can be seen as powerful allegory about the current state of human civilisation as a whole,. The little spot of land in the middle of endless sea is more-or-less in the same situation as our lonely little rock in dark cold universe, and in the ecologically induced class struggle between "Long Ears" and "Short Ears" we might see reflection of the escalating conflict between rich and privileged states of the First World and numerically increasing yet constantly impoverished multitudes of the Third World. Unlike other films that try to shove the Message down our throats by, RAPA NUI successfully shows how greed, ignorance and unbalanced approach towards environment can bring down entire civilisation.
Unfortunately, most of the viewers have to digest this message in the context of plot, characters and situations that sometimes look too cliched or simplistic, or simply out of place. One of the examples is the triathlon scene, which looks like it was added into the film only to provide some testosterone- filled action in otherwise depressive movie. The writer and director Kevin Reynolds nevertheless manages to keep things under control, helped by ethnically diverse and very capable cast. Despite many flaws, RAPA NUI is a film that can leave a strong impression on any viewers, and after WTC bombings, when the future of our world seems so uncertain, this impression is definitely going to be even stronger.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
Review written on September 21st 2001
Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax E-mail: dragan.antulov@st.tel.hr http://www.film.purger.com - Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in Croatian
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