By Paul Byrnes
★★★★
Temuera Morrison and Akuhata Keefe in Mahana.
If he had only made Once Were Warriors, Lee Tamahori would have a place in the pantheon of Kiwi cinema. That film, produced by Robin Scholes, with Temuera Morrison as the unforgettable and unforgivable Jake Heke, did two things for New Zealand: it brought on a national discussion about the origins of violence within Maori communities, and it proved that films about Maori life could succeed at the box office – and not just at home.
It was controversial and a hard act to follow. That might be why Tamahori has not made another film at home until now. His international career has been variable: some proficient action thrillers led to the prestige of Die Another Day in 2002, but he's been relatively quiet since, with three features in 14 years.
That's why Mahana is such a welcome surprise. Reuniting with Morrison and Scholes and working from a novel by the country's best-known Maori writer, Tamahori has produced a second film for which he will be remembered. He can share the kudos with Australian screenwriter John Collee, whose adaptation of Witi Ihimaera's book is masterful.
Mahana is the story of a powerful rivalry between two Maori families who make their living as shearers around Gisborne, on the east coast of the north island, in the early 1960s. In the history of Maori films, it is a landmark – it succeeds as an engrossing narrative on a grand scale about quotidian lives. It's neither paean to Maori spirituality (although there is a little of that), nor a film about the white oppression of Maori culture (although there's a little of that too). So much for what it isn't. What it is is a complete and convincing world, rooted in its own time and soil and way of thinking.
In Ihimaera's 1994 book (Bulibasha: King of the Gypsies), Tamihana Mahana is a devout Mormon, master of his extended family, all of whom live on the land he bought 40 years earlier with the sweat of his own brow. In the film, Temuera Morrison plays him as a quietly spoken Anglican tyrant. His three strapping older boys have married and started families, each in a house on the family land. They power his shearing crew. Sunday lunches (lamb, of course) are a ritual in which Tamihana reminds them all of their bounty. The only one who questions his authority is 15-year-old Simeon (Akuhata Keefe), son of Joshua (Regan Taylor) and Huria (Maria Walker). Simeon and his grandfather clash constantly – partly because he is better educated and a mouthy teenager.
Grandmother Ramona (Nancy Brunning) protects Simeon. That comes to a head over the boy's increasing attraction to a girl in the Poata family, the sworn enemies of the Mahanas. Rupeni Poata (Jim Moriarty) is the alpha male of this other mob, whose roots go back further on this land. His hatred for Tamihana is deep, for reasons more complex than Simeon has been told.
This classic plot – Hatfields v McCoys – never feels old here. Just the opposite, because Tamahori works hard on establishing his characters and their reality. A scene in the first few minutes where both families race each other along country roads to get to a funeral is both entertaining and informative about what's important. A priest has to remind the two fuming men that they are entering a church – "built with Mahana hands" Tamihana reminds the priest; "on Poata land" chimes in Rupeni.
If Once Were Warriors was about the degradation of urban life for some Maori, Mahana is about the time before that drift to the cities. For both Ihimaera and Tamahori, it's about manhood and masculinity, the kinds of men they grew up with. There is some nostalgia to that, but the most interesting part of this story is not the men. It's the women and how their power functions within the family. In a film full of fine acting, that idea is anchored by one towering performance. Nancy Brunning, playing much older, is unforgettable as Ramona, the matriarch. See it for her, but see it quickly. As good as it is, the film only has a fortnight in cinemas, unless thousands turn out.