ONCE WERE WARRIORS
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1995 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Rena Owen, Temuera Morrison, Mamaengaroa Kerr-Bell, Julian Arahanga, Taungaroa Emile. Screenplay: Riwia Brown. Director: Lee Tamahori.
Critics are often heard complaining about the lack of originality in American filmmaking, about remakes, TV-retreads and tired concepts dominating the multiplexes. When Hollywood does decide to show the audience something it has never seen before, it is usually technology leading the way (JURASSIC PARK, TERMINATOR 2). ONCE WERE WARRIORS is a wonderful example of what the movie-going experience can teach us given the opportunity. As an examination of the Maori culture in contemporary New Zealand, ONCE WERE WARRIORS showed me a world I had never seen before, and up until its overly melodramatic final half hour, it is a fascinating and unsettling drama.
ONCE WERE WARRIORS is the story of the Heke family, people of Maori descent living in present day Auckland. Beth (Rena Owen), a stoic homemaker, faces tremendous family pressures, most dangerously from her unemployed and frequently abusive husband Jake (Temuera Morrison). The children also present problems: oldest son Nig (Julian Arahanga) has left home in favor of the company of a Maori gang; middle son Boogie (Taungaroa Emile) has frequent run-ins with the law and may be taken away by social services; daughter Grace (Mamaengaroa Kerr-Bell) dreams of being a writer but is discouraged by the culture's traditional roles for women. These pressures continue to build, until a family tragedy forces Beth to decide if she can continue to live the same life.
The first image in ONCE WERE WARRIORS is an idyllic landscape, which is quickly revealed to be a billboard over a busy highway and a Maori "ghetto." Director Lee Tamahori sets up his story as one far removed from a perhaps-mythic past, and defined by a warrior culture in a land where the war for survival is fought against less tangible enemies. Often poor and treated with disdain by white authority figures, the Maori turn their aggression inward, in pointless and explosive barroom brawls and domestic violence. ONCE WERE WARRIORS has become a massive box office success in New Zealand for addressing this culture which accounts for almost 10% of its population, but it doesn't require a stretch to recognize that it is a story which translates all too well to stories of America's economically disadvantaged minority cultures. It is a specific story, but in many ways it is also a universal one.
The specific story is most effective thanks to several powerful performances. Rena Owen's Beth is a proud woman whose beauty still appears in a bright smile on her weathered face, though nearly twenty years of marriage have beaten her down. Her love for Jake is as genuine as her frequent fear and hatred of him, and that conflict drives the film. Temuera Morrison is even more complex as Jake, because he makes a violent drunk appealing enough during his good moments to make the relationship convincing; he is Fred Flintstone with a serious attitude. Mamaengaroa Kerr-Bell, as the ever-more- pessimistic Grace, is also good, as is Taungaroa Emile as the troubled Boogie.
While it is frighteningly real violence which drives ONCE WERE WARRIORS for much of its running time, pathos unfortunately takes over in the third act. There is a drawn-out sequence which gives everyone a chance to cry and make a speech, and characters start to speak in platitudes like, "You're still a slave, Jake ... a slave to your fists" and "I'll wear my (tatoos) on the inside." By the end, I was wondering whether Tamahori was taking his cue from Hollywood, providing a feel-good resolution which tied up loose ends far too neatly, rather than sticking with the harsh realities of the world in which he has placed us. This takes nothing away from everything that has gone before, however. ONCE WERE WARRIORS is filled with memorable images, solid acting and a keen sense of place and character, but without even realizing it, Tamahori has also told a story about urban sub-cultures far from his own home.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 warriors: 8.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
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