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Urban Desires Movie Reviews

reviews by Jackson Armaly

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Fine Line Features

ONCE WERE WARRIORS

Julian Arahango flanked by Tao Aotearoa gang members
in Lee Tamahori's ONCE WERE WARRIORS

If "Before the Rain" shows us a people refusing to let go of the past, Lee Tamahori's "Once Were Warriors" explores what happens when a race loses touch with its past and fills the emptiness with... whatever it can.

New Zealand's Maori are an indigenous people living on the outskirts of a culture that is not theirs. Stripped of their heritage and surviving on the dole, the Heke family is in big trouble. Jake Heke (Temuera Morrison) is a man full of rage and not much else. He vents his rage on anyone who crosses his path at the wrong time. Most often his wife Beth (Rena Owen) absorbs the blows and after 18 years of this, she finds her life spinning out of control.

Beth's children are drifting away at an accelerating rate, seeking a sense of family wherever they can, whether through a gang, a friend or, most surprisingly, in a juvenile detention home. Beth's daughter Grace (Mamaengarda Kerr-Bell) is the film's heart. She provides a sense of stability among the chaos for the other children. She cleans up the house the morning after the parties while mom and dad sleep it off. She holds the children in the middle of the night, protecting them from monsters all too real. And she reads to them from her notebook, escaping for a moment into a world of fantasy.

Beth wants to believe her husband is not the brawling loser who beats her face to a bloody pulp, but rather the charming sensual man who can sing an R&B song with the same intensity as his lovemaking. Sex is good between them, usually, and Beth convinces herself the beatings are her fault for challenging him. "Mouth shut, legs open" is a woman's place in this sub-culture.

What makes all of this different from, say, a TV movie of the week is the filmaker's keen insight into his subject matter. He understands Jake's pain as well as the pain of his victims. We end up feeling more pity than anger for Jake, his own ultimate victim. This is in no small part due to a rivetingly frightening performance by Mr. Morrison. Matched by an emotionally charged Rena Owen, these two are so explosive together it's physically exhausting at times to watch. But it is never boring.

The film finds hope in a sort of blending of traditions with modern social institutions and at times it stretches this optimism to the breaking point. What we are seeing is not in keeping with such faith in simple answers. Regardless, this is a rare find. Thoughtful, exciting, tremendously involving on a human level. Run don't walk!