book and media reviews 573

The Pā Boys. Feature , 93 min- made a relatively quiet appearance at utes, dvd pal, color, 2014. ­Written hiff. There was no fanfare, no media and directed by Himiona Grace; hype, or award. And yet, even though produced by Ainsley Gardiner and each of the Māori mentioned Mina Mathieson. Distributed by above is a significant achievement in Whenua Films Ltd and New Zealand Māori filmmaking, none of those films Film Commission. www.paboys.net. thrilled or moved me as deeply as this nz$39.95. low-budget film. The Pā Boys is about three “boy” When I showed The Pā Boys to my musicians who form a reggae band undergraduate film students at the under that name. The band’s leader University of Hawai‘i in November Danny (Fran Kora) is also the 2014, many students clapped spon- ­guitarist, while the other boys are the taneously at the end of the screening. drummer, referred to as Cityboy (Tola This type of response had not hap- Newbery), and the bass player Tau pened during the semester’s previous (Matariki Whatarau). They are joined screenings of indigenous films from on their road trip by two girl friends, Hawai‘i, New Zealand, Australia, and Jo (Roimata Fox), the manager, and North America. Puti (Juanita Hepi), the estranged Based on my students’ reviews, The girlfriend of Danny and mother of his Pā Boys illustrated most clearly to little boy. All five are talented actors them what we had been studying all whose subtle performances never semester about indigenous aesthetics ­distracted me from the story itself. in filmmaking. Here is a film that is Feminists may take issue with the accessible to them and yet unasham- emphasis on the male characters in the edly indigenous. Most importantly, film, although the title underscores the they could see clearly how cultural film’s focus on the boys, rather than values and sensibilities can be success- the girls, in the band. Māori men, after fully integrated into a screen story that all, are usually portrayed on screen is entertaining, soulful, and important. as violent and uncaring, incapable­ of The Pā Boys had its US premiere holding the family together; the focus at the 2014 Hawai‘i International on masculinity and contemporary Film Festival (hiff) alongside Taika young men’s experience in The Pā Waititi’s What We Do in the Shadows. Boys is therefore both a timely and At previous hiff festivals, films deal- important intervention. ing with Māori issues and representa- Writer-director Himiona Grace tions such as ’s Te Rua, wanted to tell a story about “young Geoff Murphy’s Utu, Merata Mita’s Maori men from the inside, as Mauri, Lee Tamahori’s Once Were opposed to outsiders’ views.” He says Warriors, Niki Caro’s , he grew up “knowing our people, the Don Selwyn’s The Maori Merchant passion, talent, and aroha we have of Venice, and ’s Boy and show for each other” (pers comm, (to name a few) had been screened, 6 Jan 2015). We see this in Danny and some to overflowing crowds and Tau’s love for the same woman (Puti), rave reviews. The Pā Boys, however, which complicates their affection for 574 the contemporary pacific • 27:2 (2015) each other. When Danny spontane- are gifted musicians, with voices that ously belts out his deep love for his enchant and enthrall. As viewers, we woman in an improvised song, the also see what they see: the beauty of passion and the desperation in his the North Island’s flora and fauna, its voice is so authentic it is heartbreak- majestic mountains shrouded in mist, ing. We feel his pain if for no other its sprawling landscapes, its rivers, its reason than the knowledge that it is sandy beaches, as well as the deep blue only through his music that he can be waters of the Pacific Ocean, beyond so articulate and revealing—and so which is Hawai‘iki, the original home- vulnerable. The reconciliation scene land of Polynesians. between the two men is so tender and As the young travelers traverse the sympathetic it drew attention to its physical terrain of the North Island, novelty on screen. Their affection for they also journey inside their own each other culminates in Tau’s request internal landscapes where cultural and and “gift” to Danny before his final personal loss, bitterness, anger, confu- breath—and this gift allows Danny to sion, and jealousy reside. By journey’s breathe in his Māori identity as well as end, their deepest and innermost find love again. thoughts, feelings, and fears have The character of Uncle Toa (Calvin been exposed, examined, and turned Tuteao), who mentors the Pā boys inside out, and their lives will never on their life-changing journey, is the be the same. One of the boys is called most dignified and compassionate into the spirit world, and his death representation of any Māori male I binds together more tightly than ever have ever seen in a film or read in a the surviving members of the group. work of fiction. It is reminiscent of Most important of all, Danny, who Patricia Grace’s character Hemi in at the journey’s beginning is the most her profound novel Potiki, as well as rootless and confused member of the Himiona Grace’s late father, Kerehi group, discovers within himself the Waiariki Grace, to whom The Pā Boys courage to do the unthinkable (and is dedicated. for what that is, you will have to see As the minibus journeys along the the film) in order to access his true meandering road that takes the Pā ­identity and (symbolically) that of boys and their two female companions every rootless Māori. from through Hastings Filmmaker Himiona Grace is the to the East Coast, the Bay of Plenty, son of Patricia Grace, one of New and finally to the Northland, the boys Zealand’s finest writers. Influenced by strum their guitars and croon soul- the work of Barry Barclay and Merata fully about the union and separation Mita, Himiona Grace has created a of earth mother and sky father (from film that embodies the wisdoms and Māori mythology); Māori struggles the fearlessness of his mentors. What to remain connected to their ances- distinguishes the films of Barclay, tors and their sacred pasts; lost love Mita, and now Grace, is their refusal and new beginnings; world peace; to let the marketplace dictate the kinds as well as fast-disappearing Māori of stories they tell on screen. They values and ways of life. The Pā boys insist on creative control over their book and media reviews 575 work, and the end results are films Boys), they can afford to take more that embrace and promote Māori risks, some of which include a fierce values and sensibilities. Cultural signi- determination for cultural accuracy fiers in their films are not there for and dignified portrayals of indigenous ­window dressing but serve as central ways of being and knowing. plot points in their films’ narratives. Screening in December 2014 at the In fact, Grace acknowledges that the Ward Theaters (and during the writing unwavering support of his Māori of this review) is a mainstream movie elders and mentors made it pos- with a similar theme to The Pā Boys; sible for him to resist pressures from the main difference between these certain funding sources to mainstream two films is revealing of the differ- his film. ent impulses that inform mainstream Perhaps because Grace is a younger cinema compared to indigenous film- and more contemporary filmmaker making. Set on the Pacific Crest Trail, (and photographer and musician), which runs from the Mojave Desert his film is about the urban world of through California and Oregon to the young people today as well as about border with Washington State, the the ancestral pasts that they need to Fox Searchlight feature film Wild is access in order to be whole. However, about a woman who heals herself by instead of rejecting urban life, they ­hiking 1,100 miles on her own. Star- find themselves most at home in the ring Reece Witherspoon, her character city. This is indeed the reality for many Cheryl views the difficult and tortur- young Māori and Pacific Islanders ous terrain as necessary obstacles to be today, making this film more realis- overcome in order to recover from a tic and believable than some other recent trauma in her life. It is all about Māori films that advocate a return to the self winning over the elements. the village or marae as a solution to In The Pā Boys, the journey is urban malaise. made with a community of five friends The Pā Boys, like many films that whose lives intersect and influence one are culturally specific, will appeal another. The healing comes primar- less to a mass audience because of ily through interactions with each the challenges of understanding a other, experiences with the mana of very different culture (and sometimes the land, and the counsel of Uncle subtitling is also a hindrance, though Toa, a Māori landowner and fisher- this is not an issue here). And yet, it man knowledgeable about the ocean, is precisely because of their cultural the unseen world of ancestral spirits, specificity and nuanced portrayal of and the winged guardian (a hawk) indigenous interactions that these soaring eternally in the sky. Unlike ­low-budget independent films are Wild, however, true healing includes a so valuable: they provide us with ­necessary connection with the natural insights into indigenous cultures and supernatural worlds that surround and they ­provide us with alternative the characters. ways of telling stories. And because Although I was moved by Reece they are made with smaller budgets Witherspoon’s award-worthy per- (nz$650,000 in the case of The Pā formance, my emotional response to 576 the contemporary pacific • 27:2 (2015)

Wild felt familiar. I had experienced film, disguised as an ordinary road the same feelings in countless other movie. As such, it is a film that is easy mainstream movies. In The Pā Boys, to overlook, even at film festivals however, my emotional responses where it might be possible to discover emanated from the deep recesses of a fearlessly independent voice. my being, which very few films have When you accidentally stumble been able to touch. Rotumans call this on an authentic voice, like I did, you place huga, which literally translates know you’ve finally experienced as “inside of the body, esp. of the the film you have always hoped to abdomen”; Hawaiians call it the na‘au see when you go to the movies but while Māori call it the ngakau. thought the day would never come! It is in one’s gut that the truth of This was how it was with me. the ages resides. This kind of knowing vilsoni hereniko cannot be explained logically or ratio- University of Hawai‘i, nally. It is a knowing that is activated Mānoa when one experiences a universal truth, which in The Pā Boys, is this: *** For these Māori young people to be truly healed, they needed to reconnect Jonah From Tonga. 2014. Televi- with and learn about their ances- sion series, 180 minutes, dvd, color, tral pasts in order to become more in English. Written by Chris Lilley, humane, more compassionate, better produced by Chris Lilley and Laura human beings. This is the universal Waters, and directed by Chris Lilley message, told not through a sermon and Stuart McDonald; distributed but through a musical story about by hbo. us$19.99. boys and their girlfriends, going away together on what they thought would The television series Jonah From be a fun journey but instead became Tonga was released to low ratings a transformational one for all con- and accusations of racism. Origi- cerned. nally presented in Australia, where it Himiona Grace and his produc- was produced, it later premiered on ers, cast, and crew have made a film hbo in the United States. It features whose truth is as old as the moun- Australian comedian and show-runner tains, as vast as the sky, and as deep as Chris Lilley, who is white, as Jonah the Pacific Ocean. This is a film that Takalua, a fourteen-year old Tongan deserves our respect not only because high school student. Lilley’s use of of its inherent wisdoms (and there are makeup and a limp frizzy wig—what several) but also because it is fearlessly might charitably be called “Polynesian culturally specific. face”—are easy targets for criticism, if In most films made by indigenous not outright dismissal, of the apparent filmmakers thus far, nuance and speci- minstrelsy that at first glance seems ficity are often compromised to cater to characterize the six-episode series. to the tastes of a global and main- And if one looked no further than stream audience. Not so with The Pā the phenotype of the main charac- Boys. The result is an ­extraordinary ter, ­certainly this show would not be