Warriors

First published in Column Eight on the 15^th June, 1994

My wife and I came out of a screening of Once Were Warriors last night reeling from the impact of this violent movie, with the famous F-word hammering away at our brains. That statement will be enough to put some people off the film, but that’s the last thing I want to do.

There is also casual sex and crudity in this movie, and an extended rape scene. This film is out to shock.

Unlike so many Hollywood movies, where the violence is gratuitous, and does nothing for anyone, the violence in this movie is unavoidable. That doesn’t make it any easier to watch.

Some of the violent scenes, like those in the pub, are to explain the kind of world which the male character, Jake inhabits. These ones seem to be exaggerated and rather choreographed, like a vicious ballet. Except for the last occurrence, those involved don’t get hurt in any obvious way. Other drinkers move gently aside, and return to their tables when it’s all over. (What the publicans do with the mess isn’t shown…)

The other scenes of violence take place in the home, and I don’t think they’re exaggerated in any way: scenes like these take place every day in homes round our country. After the worst onslaught, Jake’s wife, Beth, spends several subsequent scenes with one eye closed and her cheek blown up out of proportion. She walks stiffly, and looks as though a small breeze would knock her over.

Has all this any point? Why sit through a movie like Warriors? Is it the the equivalent of an emotional enema?

I think Once Were Warriors is a vastly more important film for New Zealanders than the much-touted The Piano. For a start it’s about New Zealand in a way The Piano really isn’t – the latter film could have been set almost anywhere.

Warriors has a much cheaper budget and uses less experienced actors. It isn’t set in the comfortable past, but tells a story about the horrific reality of the here and now. It ought to affect lives in a way The Piano could not.

Warriors isn’t just a film about the Maori people in a certain part of the country. It isn’t even just about the Maori. Certainly it’s speaking directly to those Maori men – and women – who have abandoned all that was and is good, and settled for a booze-filled, sex-saturated, violence-focused low-life.

But it also speaks to pakeha men and women. If the title was Once Were Pioneers, and the film was acted out by white faces instead of brown, little of it would need to be changed. There are plenty of white men in this land who spend their lives in the pubs, using up the income that should support their families before going home drunk, to beat up their wives, and children.

There are plenty of pakeha women who face violent husbands every day, and who finally have to choose whether to stay with them or abandon them to their self-destructive course. There are plenty of white children abused by their parents or ‘uncles.’

Once Were Warriors is a movie about all these people, and that’s why it should be essential viewing for anyone who cares about the land we live in, and more importantly, the people living here.

I think the most disquieting shots in this film occur when Jake starts beating up his wife. Suddenly the horde of people who were ‘friends’ and ‘mates’ manage to wake themselves out of their drunken stupors and make very quick exits. Everyone wants to have a share of the partying, but no one wants to defend a helpless woman when her husband’s knocking her around.

If this film forces us to ask no other question except, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ it will  have more than done its job.