"Once Were Warriors"
                             A film review by
                           Linda Lopez McAlister
                           on "The Women's Show"
                         WMNF-FM (88.5), Tampa, FL
                               April 1, 1995

   For the last several months I've been thinking about why feminists have not
used the medium of film more extensively to protest and combat domestic
violence. One of the reasons, it seems to me, is that it's hard to know how to
do this without putting even more scenes of violence against women up there on
the big screen, running the risk of glorifying such violence in the minds of
some in the audience, or serving to desensitize audiences to the violence. At
the very least, I don't imagine that it's an appealing prospect for a feminist
director to stage and film sequences that depict the brutalization of women.
At any rate, there are surprisingly few feminist anti-violence feature films.
Feminist filmmakers who have made films about violence against women employ a
variety of representational strategies to avoid or at least minimize
realistic depictions of such violence on the screen.  I'm writing a paper on
this subject for the National Women's Studies Association meeting coming up in
June in Oklahoma.

   I tell you all this to explain why I was so interested in the New Zealand
film that opened last night at the Tampa Theater, "Once Were Warriors." It is
largely a Maori- and woman-made film, directed by Lee Tamahori, written by
Riwia Brown and produced by Robin Scholes. This is a film about a contemporary
urban Maori family, alienated from their cultural traditions and wracked by
domestic violence and alcoholism. I consider it a feminist film and yet it
goes right ahead and shows the brutal battering of one woman and the rape of
another in stark and graphic terms. While this tactic made me, as a woman,
flinch in my seat and feel extremely uncomfortable, I nevertheless think that,
in the context of this whole film, showing the violence and its aftermath in
unadorned detail serves a purpose. It shocks the audience into paying
attention to it and doesn't, in the long run, glorify it by allowing its
perpetrators off the hook.  I do think, however, that if this strategy were
adopted more widely by filmmakers, such shock value would be lost and we would
become as desensitized to images of domestic violence in film as we have
become to images of male on male violence. For example, no one bats an eye
during the brutal macho bar room brawls that occur in this film, we're so used
to seeing them.

    This film is about a Maori couple, Beth and Jake Heke, who have been
married for 18 years and still love one another and find one another sexually
attractive, They have five kids ranging in ago from 17 to about 5. Jake
(played by Temuera Morrison) who gets laid off and goes on the dole as the
film opens, likes nothing better than to play the big man, hanging out with
his mates in the local beer hall and swilling huge quantities of the stuff,
then bringing the whole gang back to his housing development home to eat,
drink and party into the wee hours. These drunken evenings are likely to turn
into fights, not infrequently with Beth (Rena Owen) who joins in the partying.
and has a "big mouth" when she's drunk, so she blames herself for her beatings.

   Their kids react to this  chaotic homelife in various ways. The oldest son
rejects his family and joins a tough Maori gang that requires a brutal
initiation and then tattoos head and face in the style of old Maori warriors.
Grace (Mamaengaroa Kerr- Bell), a sweet and loving thirteen year-old, retreats
into the world of her imagination and writes stories for the littler kids and
for her best friend, a homeless boy who lives in an abandoned car under the
highway. Twelve year-old Boogie is already in trouble with the police and is
sent away to a state school when his mother is too badly beaten to show up at
his court hearing. The younger kids are frequently terrified and cling to
Grace who cares for them lovingly.

    Things get progressively worse and finally reach crisis proportions before
Beth succeeds in pulling herself and her family together and getting them back
on track as a family and as Maori.

    This is a powerful and fascinating portrait of a family and a culture in
peril. It is compellingly acted and very moving. At times it's hard to watch,
but I recommend it wholeheartedly.

      For the WMNF Women's Show this has been Linda Lopez McAlister on Women
and Film.
   Copyright 1995 by Linda Lopez McAlister. All rights reserved. Please do not
reprint this review without the permission of the author.