Haerenga Wairua - Spirit (Ual) Journeys in Twenty-First-Century Māori Cinema

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HAERENGA WAIRUA: SPIRIT(UAL)

JOURNEYS IN TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY
MAˉORI CINEMA
DEBORAH WALKER-MORRISON
University of Auckland
Résumé : Haerenga Wairua / Spiritual Journeys explore le cinéma maori en tant que 4e
cinéma, dans son articulation de la spiritualité maorie comme un ensemble de croyances
et de pratiques vivantes et d’une grande pertinence pour ce XXIe siècle. Après une brève
description des termes et croyances clés, l’auteure analyse deux longs-métrages de fiction
récents, The Strength of Water (Armagan Ballantyne, scr Briar Grace-Smith, NZ & Alle-
magne 2009) et The Pā Boys (Himiona Grace, NZ, 2014) comme emblématiques des
pratiques cinématographiques autochtones, en ce qu’ils mettent fortement en avant dif-
férents niveaux et expériences de transformation spirituelle, via divers voyages au propre
comme au figuré : voyages réels, voyages psychologiques ET expériences après la mort,
donc voyages spirituels. Positionnant ces films dans le contexte des traditions spirituelles
de narration littéraire et cinématographique, l’auteure explore les diverses techniques fil-
miques et cinématographiques mises en œuvre pour rendre l’expérience spirituelle, via le
son et l’image, en mettant en évidence les liens avec la Terre, l’Eau et l’environnement na-
turel en tant qu’éléments spirituels et souvent surnaturels. Alors que ces derniers sont gé-
néralement interprétés par les critiques et chercheurs allochtones comme étant de l’ordre
du fantastique, dans le discours établi du réalisme magique, l’auteure avance plutôt que
les représentations autochtones ne peuvent être ni expliquées ni contenues de manière
adéquate par ce terme, et propose à sa place celui de « réalisme spirituel autochtone ».
L’auteure conclut en soulignant la pertinence de voix autochtones comme celles-là, qui
expriment une spiritualité enracinée dans l’interdépendance de tous êtres et de toutes
choses : force de guérison dans notre planète meurtrie.
Mots clés : 4e cinéma, autochtone, cinéma autochtone, cinéma postcolonial, réalisme

magique, spiritualité autochtone
Abstract: This article examines how Māori cinema, as Indigenous Fourth Cinema, arti-
culates Māori spirituality as a living, evolving set of beliefs and practices of particular re-
levance to the twenty-first century. After briefly describing key Māori spiritual terms and
beliefs, I focus discussion on two recent first features, The Strength of Water ( Armagan Bal-
lantyne, 2009) and The Pā Boys (Himiona Grace, 2014). I read these films as emblema-
tic of Indigenous film practice in strongly foregrounding different levels and experiences
of spiritual transformation: via both literal travel and/or metaphorical, psychological
journeys and after-death experiences or spirit journeys. I explore how both films engage
122 CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FILM STUDIES /

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with our spiritual storytelling and filmmaking traditions, and analyze ways in which spiri-
tual experience is rendered cinematically, via sound and image, particularly by foregroun-
ding links to land, water, and the natural environment as spiritual and often supernatural
elements. While the latter are generally interpreted by non-Indigenous analysts as fantas-
tical, within the established discourse of magic realism, I suggest rather that Indigenous
representations cannot be adequately explained or contained by this term, and propose
in its stead Indigenous spiritual realism. I conclude by arguing for the growing relevance
of Native voices such as these, which speak an Indigenous spirituality rooted in the inter-
connectedness of all beings and all things, as a healing force in our battered and bruised,
digitized, globalized planet.
Keywords: Indigenous, Indigenous spirituality, Indigenous cinema, Fourth Cinema,

magic realism, postcolonial film, postcolonial cinema
Ko Ranginui kei runga

Ko Papatūānuku kei raro
Ko ngā tāngata kei waenganui
Tihei mauri ora!
I ō mātou tini mate, Tēnā koutou!
Haere ngā mate, ki Hawaiki nui, Hawaiki roa, Hawaiki pamamao,
Haere, haere, haere atu rā!
Huri noa ki a tātou te hunga ora,
Tēnā koutou tēnā koutou tēnā tātou katoa!1
INTRODUCTION
Spirituality is at the heart of Indigenous cultures across the globe and Māori cul-
ture in Aotearoa NZ is no exception. Even after 250 years of European contact,
spearheaded by evangelical Christian missionaries, traditional spiritual beliefs
and practices largely repressed by colonization not only have survived, but con-
tinue to be revived by new generations on a journey to rediscovering their Indig-
enous roots, reinventing the culture, its language, and the spiritual (hi)stories
that sit at its heart. Spirituality is the cornerstone of cultural identity and physi-
cal and psychological health, linking the individual to his or her community, to
the natural and other worlds, a fact that contemporary discourse is finally begin-
ning to acknowledge. The United Nations recognizes that Indigenous spiritual-
ity “is not separated but is an integral, infused part of the whole in the indigenous
worldview.”2 Indeed, a growing body of academic and scientific work suggests
that “spirituality is a substantial constituent of holistic well-being.”3
This paper evolved from a keynote address I was honoured to present at the
Sixth International Conference, “Revisioning the Americas through Indigenous
SPIRIT(UAL) JOURNEYS IN TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY MAˉ ORI CINEMA 123

Cinema,” held in Montréal in August 2018 in association with Présence Autoch-

tone/First Peoples’ Festival, where I also presented two programmes of Māori
and Pasifika short films for the Wairoa Māori Film Festival (of which I am co-
director, together with Louisa Opetaia and founding director Leo Koziol). Spe-
cial thanks to André Dudemaine, founding director of Présence Autochtone,
and Isabelle Saint-Amand, conference organizer!
This was my third visit to Canada (each time to participate in Indigenous
Festivals in Montréal and Ottawa), and each one has been an exciting and up-
lifting opportunity to develop friendships and forge and reinforce cultural links
between our two countries that have a long whakapapa (genealogy) going back
to the first visits, during the 1980s, of Merata Mita and Barry Barclay, the found-
ing “mother” and “father” of Māori and Indigenous Fourth Cinema. I hope my
observations will prove worthy of them and of the generations of filmmakers
inspired by their pioneering work. I hope this paper will serve, in a small way,
to continue their legacy of commitment to strengthening Indigenous links and
well-being, at home and across oceans and continents.
In the following sections I will look at how Māori cinema, an integral part
of the ongoing Māori cultural renaissance from the 1970s onwards, articulates
Māori spirituality as a living, evolving set of beliefs and practices that in many
ways surpass Western psychological and religious (and academic) discourse,
and which offer pathways to holistic well-being. I will focus discussion on two
first features released in the last decade, The Strength of Water (Armagan Bal-
lantyne, 2009) and The Pā Boys (Himiona Grace, 2014) as films that are em-
blematic of Indigenous film practice, and which strongly foreground different
levels and experiences of spiritual transformation: via both literal travel and/
or metaphorical, psychological journeys and after-death experiences or spirit
journeys. The films stand as part of an ongoing legacy of Māori storytelling, in
both film and literature, to which I shall also briefly refer. I will explore how
both films engage with our spiritual (and storytelling) traditions, as well as how
spiritual experience is rendered cinematically, via sound and image, particularly
by foregrounding links to land, water, and the natural environment as spiritual
and often supernatural elements.4 The latter are generally interpreted by non-In-
digenous analysts as fantastical, within the established discourse of magic real-
ism.5 I suggest, however, that Indigenous representations cannot be adequately
explained or contained by this term, and propose in its stead Indigenous spiritual
realism.
WAIRUA
The key Māori term for addressing the spiritual dimension of existence is wairua,
broadly meaning spirit or soul. For many Māori, wairua precedes and exceeds
Christian (or other) religious and moral strictures and beliefs, and is grounded
124 Walker-Morrison
in a deep sense of respect for and interconnectedness with the human and natu-
ral world, encompassing all living things, past, present, and future, for “earth, an-
cestors, family and peaceful existence.”6 For Indigenous peoples the world over,
the spiritual dimension covers cosmology, ontology, and social relationships:
At the cosmological level, life is considered to have emerged through the

actions of primordial beings, ancestral spirits and deities, who bestowed
upon humans the role of steward and guardian to their creations (Wright,
2013). From an ontological perspective, indigenous spirituality is foun-
dational to the construction of social relationships, and is manifest in cul-
tural beliefs, practices, and values (Sue & Sue, 2008). Providing a lens for
viewing and understanding reality, it gives existence meaning and purpose
(Furbish & Reid, 2003). In that sense, spirituality from an indigenous per-
spective acknowledges the interconnectedness between the human situa-
tion and the natural environment, as well as the human situation and an
esoteric realm. It acknowledges a wider connection to the universe as a
living entity.7
Māori scholars and cultural experts constantly highlight the fundamental im-
portance of wairua, as “the ultimate reality” and “the source of existent being
and life.”8 In its broadest contemporary definition, therefore, wairua is about
connection. It is about intrinsic links between the world of being, Te Ao Mar-
ama, housing humans and all living things, and other worlds: Te Korekore, or
the original void; Te Whai Ao, the world of becoming; and Te Pō, the under-
world, the spirit world from which living things emerge and to which we return.9
Thus “every act, natural phenomena, and other influences have both physical
and spiritual implications.”10 Connections to land and water as sources of life are
lived as transcendent and spiritual, rather than purely physical.
Wairua is the link between cycles of life and death, between the life force,
or mauri, and the afterlife. The line between the emotional, psychological world
and the spiritual domain is highly porous, symbolized by the role of dreams, as
both films will illustrate.
SPIRITUAL RESONANCES OF LAND AND WATER
Māori call ourselves tangata whenua, the people of the land, to which we have
a deeply spiritual connection. As for Indigenous peoples the world over, the
land, whom we call Papatuanuku, our earth mother, owns us as much as we own
her, and while we stand upon her as kaitiaki, or guardians, she protects and sus-
tains us, as we protect her. Each hapu, or local tribe, has a sacred mountain, or
maunga, with which we identify. Equally, this connection includes waterways:
along with our maunga, we identify with a sacred lake or river, and with the

original waka, or canoe, that brought us to Aotearoa.11 Indeed, the element of

water, including the ocean, is central to Māori spirituality; as in many cultures,
it is linked with purification. Moreover, water’s fluid nature evokes processes of
transformation and the passage from life to the afterlife, as the wairua journeys
from the tip of the North Island, at Te Rerenga Wairua (the leaping-off place
of the spirits), across the ocean to Hawaiki, the original homeland. Indeed, the
close link between the element of water and the soul is grounded in the word
wairua itself. Etymologically, wairua is made up of the word for water, wai, and
rua, meaning two,
implying the existence of two entities, which paradoxically may be opposi-

tional while at the same time complementary, thus hinting at the notion of
a balanced wholeness. Wai can also be defined as unique, special, and un-
precedented; while rua can also mean abyss or container. With this in mind,
Bidois (2016) says wairua can mean that which is unique, special, and con-
tained within.12
The above aspects of land and water as powerful multilevel metaphors of

spiritual connection are naturally foregrounded in Māori cinema, as wonder-
fully illustrated by the two films we will now explore.
THE STRENGTH OF WATER
Director: Armagan Ballantyne; scriptwriter: Briar Grace-Smith; producer: Fiona

Copeland (New Zealand/Germany, 2009; 86 minutes).
Set in a remote, rural community in the far-north Hokianga Harbour, the
film tells the story of ten-year-old twin brother and sister Kimi (Hato Pap-
aroa) and Melody (Melanie Mayall-Nahi), who live with their large family on a
small chicken farm. After school, when the twins aren’t roaming the windswept
cliffs and beaches or playing with their pet chicken Aroha, they help their hard-
working parents Gibby ( Jim Moriarty) and Joy (Nancy Brunning), delivering
eggs to the neighbouring community.13
Their quiet life takes an unexpected turn with the arrival of Tai (Isaac Bar-
ber), a solitary young drifter on the run from police, who seeks refuge in the
abandoned house of his deceased grandfather, whom he never knew. The twins
befriend Tai and their parents naturally offer him hospitality, but his presence
precipitates the film’s tragic central drama. Out walking, Tai and Melody are sud-
denly attacked by a vicious dog belonging to the twins’ eldest brother, Gene
(Shayne Biddle). When the pair take refuge in an old freezer, it suddenly snaps
shut, trapping them both inside. The asthmatic Melody dies, and Tai is immedi-
ately saddled with the blame for her death by a jealous, guilt-laden Gene, who
turns the stranger away from Melody’s tangi (funeral).
126 Walker-Morrison
Kimi refuses to accept his sister’s death, and is unsurprised when she ap-
pears in the henhouse and continues to keep him company, unseen by others.
But despite Melody’s calm solicitude towards her twin, and to their parents’ dis-
may, Kimi’s behaviour becomes increasingly erratic and aggressive. Meanwhile,
Tai develops a romantic bond with the beautiful Tirea (Pare Paseka), who has
rejected Gene’s advances and dreams of a better life elsewhere.
Kimi (whose name means “to search”) embarks on a journey of mourning
for his twin soul sister. His search is framed as a deeply spiritual quest to find
himself and his place, his own voice and “place to stand” within his whanau (ex-
tended family) and community.
Non-Indigenous journalistic and academic reviews are generally favoura-
ble, though most reduce the film’s spiritual dimension to childlike fantasy and
magic realism14 or a creative, psychological attempt to cope with grief.15 Of five
reviews, only one16 employs the term “spiritual” at all (in reference to Māori
spiritual traditions around death and dying).
Harriet Wild’s article provides an eloquent, sensitive reading that convinc-
ingly frames Melody’s spirit appearances in largely Freudian psychoanalyti-
cal terms, as Kimi’s “creative mourning . . . by which the subject re-creates or
re-members the lost love object.”17 However, I will argue that the film also al-
lows, even invites, multilevel understandings, notably the possibility of an In-
digenous spiritual realist reading according to which Kimi’s bond with his soul
mate sister is such that, on a spiritual level, she remains with him for a time after
her death. I do not mean to suggest that the film’s supernatural images must be
read literally; I simply point out that Indigenous spiritual realism opens a space,
or question mark, around the existence of otherworldly dimensions that remain
opaque and “mystical” to Western science.
The film opens and closes with a black screen, which, in the context of the
narrative, strongly suggests that the entire story and its images emerge from a
spiritual realm. Darkness is a universal metaphor for the afterlife, in Māori tra-
dition known as Te Pō, also meaning darkness and night. The porous boundary
between life, death, and the spirit world is again given visual expression by the
use of the black screen. From a medium close-up of Kimi’s uncomprehending,
dripping face, turning away in the rain as their father lifts an inert Melody from
the freezer and desperately attempts to resuscitate her, Ballantyne cuts to a black
screen for a full ten seconds. At this point we do not know whether Melody is
still alive. However, five seconds into the shot, the off-screen introduction of the
karanga,18 or call to mourning (akin to the tolling of the church bell in Christian
ceremony), provides the answer, cuing the audience to the next shot of the fu-
neral procession.19 Wild argues that the black screen exemplifies one of a series
of “vectors that cut,” indices of pain, separation, the sharp dividing line between
life and death, which Kimi’s creative reimagining—or, as I would say, spiritual
awareness—dissolves.20

Ceremonies of Mourning
At this point also, the brooding skies open, and horizontal sheets of blinding
rain lash the mourners as they answer the karanga, trudging across the marae
towards the wharenui (meeting house) beneath a sea of forlorn black umbrellas,
the women wearing traditional wreaths of kawakawa leaves, Melody’s father and
male relations bearing her small white coffin.
As media professional and cultural expert Harry Dansey noted,
Our dead are very close to us in Maoridom. They do not lie alone in that
short space between death and burial. We stay with them every minute and
talk to them and sing to them. When we have returned them to the earth
we remember them in song and speech. Each time we meet one another af-
ter being apart we pause and weep again, no matter how happy the occasion
for our meeting.21
Inside the meeting house, the family huddle around the open coffin, surrounded
by Melody’s favourite toys and objects, while a kaumatua (elder) says prayers in
te reo (Māori), to remember the dead and to bid Melody farewell on her spirit
journey to Te Reinga, the leaping-off place, from where it will make the long
journey across the Pacific, to the originary homelands of Hawaiki nui, Hawaiki
roa, Hawaiki Pāmāmao (Hawaiki the great, the long, the far-distant), and the
spirit world, Te Pō.
The Power of Water
The film’s title clearly references both the physical and spiritual power of wa-
ter, wai, and, for Māori audiences, its connection to spirit, wairua. Director
and cinematographer infuse the image track with blue-green tones that give
the entire film an ethereal, watery feel. The restricted palette extends to cos-
tumes: almost all characters are dressed in blue and grey, echoing the land
and seascapes.
(The most notable exception to the film’s prevailing blue-green-grey colour
scheme is Kimi’s red windcheater jacket. In Māori tradition red represents Te
Whai Ao, the realm of coming into being, or potential energy. This flash of red
associated with Kimi can thus be understood alongside his search, his journey to
find himself, his gradual “coming into being” after his twin’s death.)
On a physical level, water sustains and purifies the mauri, or life force.
According to screenwriter Briar Grace-Smith, her title was also inspired by a
pre-match purification rite in Japanese sumo wrestling (Kimi’s favoured sport,
pictured on a giant poster by his bed), wherein the two opposing sumo rinse
their mouths with a ladleful of chikara-mizu, or “strength water.” And indeed,
128 Walker-Morrison
Melody’s untimely death precipitates Kimi into a symbolic spiritual battle

against despair, one in which he will need all the “strength water” he can get.
The universal symbolism of water, essential to life, sees it as sustaining and
cleansing on multiple levels: physical, emotional, and spiritual. Thus the brack-
ish muddy waters of the stream that flows by the dump where Melody is acci-
dentally killed signal that something is not right in their world, that the life force
is not flowing as it should.
Tai, whose name means tide or surf, also possesses the fluid “strength of
water,” and a heightened capacity for compassion, or aroha, as when he bun-
dles Melody into the freezer to save her from Gene’s vicious dog and tries in
vain to keep her alive. After her death we see him standing on the cliffs, facing
the tide before surrendering himself to it. For a moment it seems that he has de-
termined to let himself drown. But the tide carries him back to his grandfather’s
broken-down house by the beach, which has become his refuge. Known to the
twins as “the tapu house” (tapu means taboo, both sacred and off-limits), this
liminal space between land and water will become one of subtle spiritual trans-
formation, first and foremost for Tai himself. This process begins when Gene’s
badly wounded dog wanders in, also seeking refuge. Strangely, Tai accepts this
instrument of cruel fate and cares for it. Similarly, he confronts Gene and his
gang of mates when they break into the house, but without resorting to violence.
An essentially good man hounded by fate, Tai is beset by a melancholy outsider
status and “bad luck” that reflect the belief that a Māori person cut off from his
roots—land, community, identity—is bound to suffer from spiritual malaise,
since these connections determine the health of the wairua, without which “the
individual is considered to be lacking in well-being.”22 Tai’s character also evokes
the fugitive Paki in Merata Mita’s seminal feature, Mauri.23 Both are loners, seek-
ing and fearing connection, struggling emotionally and spiritually to find their
place, in both the Pākehā world and the Māori world of their ancestors.
When Tirea takes Tai on a walk up the mountain, the film subtly fore-
grounds their shared ancestral connection to the land. Central to the establish-
ment of identity, the mountain is a key aspect of tūrangawaewae, one’s place to
stand. As they gaze over the summit and she tells him his grandfather “looked
after the mountain. People freaked out on him. He knew all that old Māori stuff,”
we understand the old man to have been a tohunga (traditional priest, healer, or
sorcerer) versed in traditional spirituality. Tai’s return thus suggests a spiritual
heritage or birthright, however dilapidated, and asks whether or not he will
actively reclaim it. Moreover, Tirea’s instinctively felt attraction to Tai is con-
structed as a recognition of this: “When I look at you, I see light.” The liminal
space of the tapu house, which stands on the very edge of the beach, its front
door looking out to sea, is also one of transformation and healing for both Tirea
(whose junkie parents abandoned her as a child) and Kimi: it is here that he ex-
onerates Tai from blame for Melody’s death.

Tlˉhore mai te rangi (Clear Up Sky)
Water is not simply a positive symbol of cleansing, fluidity, emotional and

spiritual transformation; it is a cipher for the power of nature to sweep all away
before it into the supernatural world. From the mysterious underwater images
that open the film, even before the rain arrives, as we have seen, the narrative is
punctuated by shots of dark, water-laden clouds, a swirling estuary, and power-
fully rolling surf.
The potentially lethal power of water is thus clear from the visual imagery.
But for Māori audiences it is also suggested obliquely by the soundtrack, via the
song Tīhore mai te rangi (Clear Up Sky). Adapted from a traditional karakia, or
chant, by one of Māori cinema’s most prolific and best-loved composers, Hirini
Melbourne, in around 1978, the song calls on birds and earthworms to escape
from the pounding rain, lest they catch cold or drown.24 Tihore mai appears dur-
ing Melody’s ill-fated walk with Tai, as she sings the first few lines while swing-
ing her poi, and again while she is pulled along the beach in the egg cart by her
brother, after she has died. We hear her singing it again when she is finally ready
to leave him; her off-screen lament accompanies images of a forlorn Kimi gaz-
ing out at the crashing surf from their favourite clifftop lookout, followed by an
underwater shot of hundreds of jellyfish, swimming away through the dark. The
sea is thus a vector, here not one that cuts but one that carries Melody’s wairua,
via her totem animals, on her spirit journey. Cut to Kimi in the wharenui, replac-
ing the photo of the paramount chief with his sister’s cracked image, in a final
recognition that she has left for the spirit world. As he leaves, a guitar reintro-
duces the song, which continues in full over the last scene and final credits, this
time performed by composer Hirini Melbourne, with guitar accompaniment.
Cut from the ceiling of the wharenui to the shallow waters of a running stream.
Kimi enters the shot, walking barefoot through the clear water, until it leads him
home to be finally reunited with his family.
From a metaphor for tears of mourning that have the potential to submerge
and drown the grieving subject, the clear water of the final scene speaks unam-
biguously of emotional and spiritual purification and the continuation of life.
The Strength of Water (henceforth TSOW) elicited inevitable comparisons
with Nicki Caro’s 2002 adaptation of Witi Ihimaera’s The Whale Rider, for its
child-centred narrative and Māori coastal setting. The two films are also con-
trasted through TSOW’s darker, brooding atmosphere, tragic death, and rain-
swept land and seascapes. Dark moments are confined to the central drama
in The Whale Rider, while the majority of scenes are sun-drenched and posi-
tively dynamic. See, for instance, the final scene, in which the heroine, Pai, hav-
ing gained acceptance by her grandfather as the tribe’s first female leader, leads
the community on a new journey, on a newly restored waka that sets out, like
its Polynesian forebears, across a glistening blue sea, into a bright future. Such
130 Walker-Morrison
a feel-good, upbeat ending led Barry Barclay to dismiss the entire film as “in-
digenous film for beginners.”25 Both films were co-produced by German Pan-
dora Films, and the latter was seen as responsible for Whale Rider’s Disney-like
dénouement, and especially criticized for clumsily inserting a decorative young
German woman into the narrative—as a love interest for the heroine’s father.
However, the production company thankfully took a more hands-off approach
to TSOW, perhaps because the small budget lessened the need to reach wide au-
diences. Perhaps also the German target audience were presumed less keen to
insert themselves into this much darker, intimist narrative of damaged, mourn-
ing people and forbidding landscapes.
THE PAˉ BOYS
Director and scriptwriter: Himiona Grace; producer: Ainsley Gardiner and Mina
Mathieson (New Zealand, 2014; 93 minutes).
Spiritual Roots and Routes
Hybridizing popular musical and road movie genres, the film traces the route
to recovering lost cultural and spiritual roots. The eponymous Pā Boys are a
fictional Wellington-based Māori reggae band formed when two flatmates,
house-owner and erstwhile singer-songwriter Danny (Fran Kora) and likeable
layabout drummer Cityboy (Tola Newbery), are joined by the multitalented
Tau (Matariki Whatarau). Cityboy’s girlfriend-cum-manager Jo (Roimata Fox)
organizes a pub tour “down north” and the Pā Boys hit the road, joined by Puti
( Juanita Hepi), Danny’s estranged ex-partner and mother of his child. Danny’s
complete and hitherto blissful ignorance of his Māori roots is shaken by new-
comer Tau’s understated fluency in te reo and tikanga (language and cultural tra-
dition). When the group stops briefly to see Puti’s mother (Nancy Brunning),
who is bringing up their young son, Tau is immediately able to develop a rap-
port with the boy via te reo, while Danny’s inability to do so puts him on the
outer. Tensions rise further with Puti and Tau’s growing attraction, threatening
the bonds that hold together the “band of brothers.”
First-time writer-director Himiona Grace, son of renowned Māori writer
Patricia Grace, then husband of Briar Grace-Smith, and set photographer for
TSOW, grew up at his mother’s Pā (tribal community), and had been playing
in bands for decades, touring up and down the country, when he conceived the
idea for the film, which draws on a wealth of personal and whanau experience.
He was also determined to provide alternative, authentic, positive images of
Māori masculinity, to counterbalance pervasive negative stereotypes perpetu-
ated in local media. “I grew up at the Pa and experienced first hand what our fa-
thers, uncles and grandfathers were like. They weren’t the people I read about,

or heard about, or learned about.”26 Grace also points to Māori films as bear-
ing responsibility for portraying Māori men as violent wife-beaters (Once Were
Warriors) or domineering patriarchs (The Whale Rider). While I don’t share Hi-
miona’s view of these two films,27 I do absolutely endorse his call for positive
audiovisual representations of Māori masculinity, as a way of providing a fuller
picture of the contemporary culture and offering strong, authentic role models.
Grace was also driven by a long-standing fascination with Māori creation
stories, in particular the “traditional journey of the spirit and the many other
concepts behind this journey.” And although he himself grew up immersed in
Māori language and culture, he is acutely aware that many Māori have not been
as fortunate. “Genealogical lines and history is crucial within our culture and
sadly, for many the lines have been severed. That is partly what drove me to tell
this story.” Danny’s character is thus intentionally emblematic of the many ur-
ban Māori who remain alienated from their cultural roots. The 2013 New Zea-
land census indicated that of the 668,724 New Zealanders who claimed Māori
descent (one in seven; up by 3.8 per cent from 2006), approximately 80 per cent
were living in urban areas and 20 per cent knew nothing of their tribal ances-
try. And only 3.7 per cent of New Zealanders claimed to be fluent speakers of
te reo.28 So, we learn in the opening scenes that Danny was adopted at birth by
a middle-class Pākehā couple from Wellington, from whom he has inherited a
large, early twentieth-century two-storied house situated on a hill overlooking
the capital city and port. The partly tongue-in-cheek renaming of this very Euro-
pean dwelling as The Pā (fortified village, often situated on a hill with command-
ing views), despite the fact that Danny has next to no knowledge of things Māori,
nonetheless reflects the transformation of the European nuclear family dwell-
ing into a Māori communal space—even if primarily out of economic necessity.
As a road movie the film uses multiple settings, making the most of beau-
tiful rural and coastal landscapes, taking the spectator from Wellington, at the
southern point of the North Island, to the Hokianga and far north, via the East
Coast and Mount Hikurangi, tūrangawaewae (ancestral lands) of Grace’s father
Waiariki, to whom the film is dedicated. The Pā Boys journey “down north”
because, according to Māori tradition (as Cityboy explains to an incredulous
Danny), when the demigod hero Maui fished up the North Island, the head was
located at the southern tip, and the tail in the far north. This alternative geogra-
phy is another key example of ways in which Māori and Indigenous worldviews
invert Western ontologies and epistemologies.
From Intrusion and Exclusion to Cultural Inclusion
French academic Nelly Gillett notes how the script externalizes Danny’s fear
of engagement with his cultural roots via the character of Tau, whose intru-
sive entrance into Danny’s life catalyzes the initially unwanted intrusion of
132 Walker-Morrison
the culture—te reo, customary protocol, and origin stories.29 Danny scoffs at
Tau’s blessing the house “Māori-style,” backs off in surprise when Tau attempts
to introduce himself by pressing noses in the hongi (traditional greeting), and
later, on the road, is dismissive of Tau’s recounting of the spiritual significance
of Mount Hikurangi, the scared maunga of the Ngāti Porou people and resting
place of Maui’s canoe, after he had fished up the North Island. Danny’s reactions
are presented as a natural defence mechanism against a culture from which he
feels excluded. Following Wild’s analysis of TSOW, we might say that he views
tikanga as a vector that cuts. Tau’s perceived intrusions into Danny’s personal
life via his interactions with his son and ex-partner combine with cultural and
professional rivalry to bring the two friends to blows. But their conflict is pre-
sented as part of the journey. From a Māori perspective Tau’s actions can be seen
as a wero, or challenge, that Danny will have to respond to. And indeed, over the
course of the narrative, Danny gradually opens up to his Māori side, so that by
the final act he is a key player in a narrative of spiritual healing and survival that
extends beyond himself.
Reconnecting with whakapapa
It is their shared musical culture that first brings the three “brothers” together.30
Despite initial tensions, over the course of the road trip Danny is gradually inte-
grated into the band’s Māori reggae-soul-funk, as “the boys strum their guitars
and croon soulfully about the union and separation of earth mother and sky fa-
ther (from Maori mythology); Maori struggles to remain connected to their an-
cestors and their sacred pasts; lost love and new beginnings; world peace; as well
as fast-disappearing Maori values and ways of life.”31
To the film’s rhetorical question “What’s a Māori without roots?” the an-
swer can only be “Not a Māori.” The spiritual phase of Danny’s journey to re-
connect with the culture thus involves the rediscovery of his own genealogical
(whakapapa) and geographical (tūrangawaewae) roots—and in Māori terms
these are one and the same. This phase begins when the band stop off on their
way “down” the East Coast, at Tau and Jo’s tūrangawaewae of Wharekaahu
(house of the hawk). As they arrive, thirty-three minutes into the film, night
shots of dark hills and a glistening black sea alternate with a waning gibbous
moon, known in the Māori lunar calendar as the somewhat portentous Korekore
te whiawhia, which signals “an unproductive night on the shore—winds sweep
the sea.” When the van stalls crossing an almost dry, meandering river bed at the
entrance to Wharekaahu, Tau and Danny go in search of help. The evening ends
mysteriously, Danny becoming separated from Tau and Puti seeing Tau in a vi-
sion by the river, when he could not have been there.
The next day the group meets the current guardian of Wharekaahu and
wise repository of local knowledge, who shares some of the local history. Played

by veteran actor Calvin Tuteao, Uncle Toa,32 whose name means warrior, acts as
a spiritual mentor for Danny. Toa immediately senses that Danny—who con-
tinues to feign a lack of interest in his Māori roots—has a deep connection to
Wharekaahu. His instincts are confirmed when he learns Danny has wandered
into the tapu domain of a powerful old tohunga who lived centuries ago. To-
hunga were
spiritually sanctioned individuals with expertise in aspects of well-being,

and utilised a variety of remedies and practices such as karakia and ron-
goā (Durie, 1998). Because Māori realities primarily revolved around in-
terconnectedness with a spiritual realm, conceptualisations of illness and
healing practices were influenced by such understandings, resulting in be-
liefs that “illness was a result of wrong living” or intervention from the
spirit world.33
Credited with supernatural powers, the tohunga was responsible for “medi-
at[ing] between the gods and tribe to ensure the welfare of the tribe.”34 How-
ever, some tohunga misused their power for more personal, vindictive ends.
Known as tohunga whaiwhaia (pursuers) or tohunga makutu (evil spellcasters),
they “developed out of the spirit of strife and jealousy that existed between ri-
val families. To exact vengeance, they sold themselves to the dark gods and con-
ducted their nefarious activities in secret.”35 In the film we learn via Uncle Toa
that hundreds of years before, this tohunga put a curse on Tau’s ancestor, con-
demning each firstborn son of each generation to an early death, so that the
bloodline would eventually be extinguished. The role of the kaahu, or hawk, that
circles the village, a descendant of the original bird belonging to Tau’s ancestor
(i.e., the spirit of the same bird), is to protect his descendants. But the tohun-
ga’s power proves too strong: the curse has already killed Tau’s father, and Tau
is also under its spell, suffering from unexplained blackouts. Uncle Toa knows,
long before Danny, that he is the living descendant of this old tohunga—only he
can stop the curse.
The band’s pub tour continues until they finally reach the far north. Driv-
ing along the vast sands of Ninety-Mile Beach to the northern tip of the island,
they naturally end at Cape Reinga, Te Rerenga Wairua. As they watch in awe the
meeting place of two seas from where the spirit leaps into the Pacific on its fi-
nal journey, Danny’s animosity towards Tau dissipates. The two finally become
close, with Tau confiding in Danny that as a young boy, when his father was on
his death bed, he instructed him in the family’s traditional means of passing on
spiritual knowledge. When Tau subsequently collapses and is rushed to hospital,
near death, he begs Danny to repeat the gesture. Danny complies and the film
immediately cuts to shots of the hawk, alternating with Danny following Tau
across the shallow river (which functions as a border with the spirit worlds) in
134 Walker-Morrison
semi-darkness, as, off screen, the karanga begins its familiar lament. Cut to the
two in a clearing near the top of Mount Hikurangi in the middle of a circle of im-
posing carved sculptures.36 This is the sacred maunga of Tau’s Ngāti Porou tribe,
first point on the planet to see the rising sun.
“You’re not supposed to be here. It’s not your time.” To return Danny to the
land of the living, Tau gives him his very last breath, the breath of Life: Tihei
mauri ora! Cut to the summit of Hikurangi, which tells us Tau’s wairua has be-
gun its journey. “Tau’s request and ‘gift’ to Danny before his final breath . . . al-
lows Danny to breathe in his Maori identity as well as find love again.”37 The final
scene returns us to the tohunga’s domain at Wharekahu, revealing Danny, Puti
reunited, and Uncle Toa. As Toa says a traditional lament and farewell to his
nephew, Danny replaces the tohunga’s carved figure, in a clear gesture of heal-
ing and reconciliation. Meanwhile, the off-screen soundtrack features the song
Danny struggled to write in the opening scene, finally completed, which de-
clares, “I’m home again.”
CULTURAL SPECIFICITY, AUTHENTIC CHARACTERS, AND

UNIVERSAL THEMES
Non-Indigenous reviewers of both films remarked on their authenticity and

emotional appeal. Indigenous Fijian filmmaker and academic Vilsoni Hereniko,
reviewing The Pā Boys (henceforth TPB) in 2014 and comparing it to the clas-
sics of Māori cinema,38 declared, “None of those films thrilled or moved me as
deeply as this low-budget film.” In both of our films, strong acting performances
(which for TSOW included mostly nonprofessionals) and understated scripts
enable cultural content to be delivered naturally, allowing characters to “speak
for themselves”—and as a result the audience is positioned as receiving this
knowledge respectfully, rather than being entitled to it or “gawking in” at it,39 or
growing bored by it. In TSOW Ballantyne’s deft direction—particularly of her
child stars, both new to acting—brings Grace-Smith’s sensitive script to life. In
TPB Himiona Grace often follows the presentation of potentially “heavy” cul-
tural content with lighthearted humour, avoiding didacticism and putting cul-
tural traditions in a living, contemporary context, as when Uncle Toa explains
the local Ngāti Porou tradition of the spiritual journey to the afterlife: “Here, our
spirit climbs to the top of Mount Hikurangi. That’s where Maui’s canoe rests.
And just before dawn the canoe leaves, taking your spirit on to Hawaiki. . . . We
call it the departure lounge.”
Whether or not they read them in Indigenous spiritual terms, non-Indig-
enous audiences can relate to the films’ central human dramas and universal
themes around life and death, love, and loss and recovery: Danny’s difficult jour-
ney to discover his personal and cultural roots; Kimi’s struggle to overcome the
tragic loss of his soul mate twin sister. As Pākehā producer Fiona Copeland puts

it, TSOW is “a story of the resilience of the human spirit” told in a uniquely
Māori way, using “layers of Maori spirituality floating very lightly around the
characters.”40 Copeland suggests strongly that this spiritual point of view is a gift
that Indigenous peoples have to offer the world.
TOTEM ANIMALS, DREAM-WORKS, AND SPIRIT JOURNEYS
The opening scenes of both films feature totem animals appearing in a surreal
dreamscape, whose meaning will become clear only as the narrative progresses.
TSOW opens from black onto otherworldly shots of hundreds of jellyfish, mov-
ing silently through the deep. These images punctuate the narrative, notably ap-
pearing to Kimi in a dream after Melody’s death. TPB opens similarly from a
black screen onto a dream sequence. In an extreme long shot, we see a hawk cir-
cling in a dark blue sky, over moonlit sea and cliffs, the bird’s cries piercing the si-
lence. Cut to a medium close-up of a hooded figure silhouetted against the dark
sky. Cut again to bush, a river bed, as the figure walks through. In fact, the scene
is a flashforward to Danny’s auspicious arrival in Wharekaahu.
Both the jellyfish (TSOW) and kaahu-hawk (TPB) are able to travel freely
in realms outside human physical capability, thus acting as protectors in this life
and spirit guides on the journey to the next. Jellyfish, Melody’s watery guard-
ians, while insubstantial, represent pure feeling and the strength of water. The
predatory kaahu’s soaring flight and omniscience is the physical incarnation of
Danny and Tau’s spiritual battle and a living index of spiritual vision.
KO TE MEA NUI, KO TE AROHA: LOVE IS THE GREATEST

THING
Māori cultural experts note that traditional attitudes to violent or accidental

death often involved retribution (utu) or the custom “known as ‘muru,’ which
was raiding to get payment for some offence. It would often take place where
some person or family was blamed for causing a death by accident.”41 In TSOW
Gene’s blaming and pursuit of Tai following Melody’s death, contrasted with
Tai’s “forgiving” care for Gene’s wounded dog, can be productively read as a re-
flection of how this custom has evolved—since, far from endorsing Gene’s be-
haviour, easily understandable within a framework of utu and muru, the film
puts its audience firmly on the side of aroha, or compassion. Similarly, in TPB
Danny breaks the centuries-old curse that kills Tau via acts of aroha: accepting
Tau’s gift of his dying breath; continuing Tau’s lineage by accepting his role as fa-
ther to his and Puti’s unborn child. The acceptance of Tau’s gift “allows Danny to
breathe in his Maori identity as well as find love again.”42
Emblematic of Indigenous worldviews, both films foreground healing via
caring connection to others and to the natural world. As Hereniko points out,
136 Walker-Morrison
even when a formidable force, nature is not a wild thing to be tamed, an obstacle
to be overcome, but an integral part of us, one that will sustain us provided we
face it with humility, aroha, and respect.43 It is the (re-)establishment of aroha
that enables the films’ life-affirming but understated endings, reinforced by mu-
sic. Despite the tragic, untimely deaths of main characters (Melody and Tau),
the cycle of life continues as Danny and Kimi reconnect with their communities.
Moreover, their final homecomings also reiterate the primeval narratives of the
gods’ emergence into the World of Light.
ENACTING FOURTH CINEMA: PRINCIPLES AND

PRODUCTION CONTEXTS
Pioneers of Māori and Indigenous film as Fourth Cinema Barry Barclay and Mer-
ata Mita emphasized the need for Māori to tell our own stories, foregrounding our
own cultural and spiritual realities “in our own image,”44 using Māori filmmakers,
actors, settings, technicians, music, and narrative methodologies, to “decolonize the
screen.”45 Indigenous Fourth Cinema is a deeply democratic “of the people, by the
people, for the people” approach, driven by values of collaboration, community,
and reciprocity. It supposes syncretic, hybrid approaches to life and work that take a
lead from holistic, community-focussed Indigenous values and economic practice.
TSOW is set in the Hokianga, believed to be the place where one of the first
Polynesian voyagers, Kupe, landed in Aotearoa (in around 800 AD). The area is
considered a place of deep cultural and spiritual significance; one of its names, Te
Puna o Te Ao Marama, means “the wellspring of the world of light.” Briar Grace-
Smith tells how she wrote the script for this specific setting, without actually
ever having been there. On her first visit she was surprised to experience a clear
sense of déjà vu, as the landscapes were exactly as she had pictured them in her
mind’s eye—which she saw as a tohu, a sign that the film was meant to be filmed
in the Hokianga and nowhere else. Despite the added cost, the film’s non-Indig-
enous producers respected her choice. Filming in such a remote area brought
challenges but also taonga, or treasures, in the form of community connections
that enriched the film and that still endure. As Grace-Smith notes, “Sometimes
filmmakers feel it is a privilege for communities to have us among them but it’s
really the other way around. It’s our privilege to be accepted by them.”46
The road travelled in TPB, from the capital city of Wellington, down north
along the East Coast to Northland, is a road Himiona Grace has been travelling
his entire life. His and fellow producers’ personal and whanau connections in
the numerous locations enabled the shoot to stay grounded in its communities
and stay within the film’s modest budget:
With a small budget in mind we knew shooting in places where we have

family connections was going to make sense. “Puti’s Mum’s house” was

actually my Aunty’s place where I hung out as a kid. Wharekaahu, the

beautiful land where the bulk of the second act was set is actually where
my Father’s is from. We shot on his land and at his cousin’s beach house.
We have family connections in Tolaga Bay and Tokomaru Bay, where
the first pub scenes were shot. Ainsley (Gardner, producer) grew up in
Whakatane and has ties to the Bay of Plenty. We spent quite a bit of time
there, including the shoot at Te Teko pub, all the motel scenes etc. So the
whole shoot was run like a family outing, visiting long but not so lost
relations.47
Grace honours these friends, whanau, and other locals, supplementing the cus-
tomary acknowledgements with the name of each and every extra in the closing
credits—quite possibly a cinematic first. The credits also open with an acknowl-
edgement of forbears: the film is dedicated to Grace’s father, Waiariki Grace
(1936–2013), and to the memory of Merata Mita (1942–2010), Barry Barclay
(1944–2008), and revered Pākehā scriptwriter Graeme Tetley (1942–2011).
TSOW is the creation of a Pākehā director (Ballantyne) and producer
(Copeland) and a Māori writer (engaged in conversations with her director from
the start and present on set for some of the shoot) working very much as a team,
with an almost all-Māori cast. Added to this, Copeland ensured there were “as
many Māori crew as we could find,” sought help with script and production from
prominent Māori filmmakers Taika Waititi and Tainui Stephens, and secured the
involvement of cultural expert Laurence Wharerau as on-set tikanga advisor to
ensure the shoot was consistent with cultural values and protocols.48 Moreover,
the film was made with the active participation and support of the community,
and key roles were played by nonprofessionals, many of whom were from the
Hokianga. Finally, the German partner employed a hands-off approach, as men-
tioned, allowing the film to maintain its cultural authenticity without the intru-
sion of Western characters and plot lines, as occurred with Whale Rider. This type
of partnership honours the original pact made by our tipuna (ancestors), who
signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi with the British Crown 180 years ago. The film very
much respects Briar Grace-Smith’s largely unmediated insider view, successfully
negotiating the “precarious juggling acts between cultural sensitivity and eco-
nomic rationale”49 faced by all filmmakers telling non-mainstream stories.
With its all-Māori production team and cast, TPB was the first feature to
receive funding from Te Paepae Ataata, created to “celebrate a Māori cinematic
voice and to provide an alternative development pathway for Māori filmmak-
ers.”50 But despite this, director and producers had to fight hard to retain the
film’s spiritual integrity against the insistence of central funders on a more up-
beat, traditional happy ending—presumed necessary in order to attract main-
stream audiences. According to Grace, it was only the “unwavering support of
his Maori elders and mentors” that made such resistance possible.51
138 Walker-Morrison
In his tribute to Barry Barclay, Stuart Murray reiterates Barclay’s recogni-

tion that the collective, commercial nature of feature film production inevitably
leads to demands from industry players, which means “an Indigenous cinema
seeking a substantial audience faces real difficulties when trying to maintain an
existence free from the infrastructure that comes with any major film industry.”52
Fourth Cinema’s difficult relationship with mainstream funders led Māori aca-
demic Brendan Hokowhitu to the conclusion that a truly radical, that is, authen-
tic and autonomous, Indigenous cinema (and media) would need to forgo state
funding altogether—which would most likely leave Indigenous voices com-
promised—or remain pure but unheard.53 Pākehā academic Davinia Thornley
remarks on the cruel choices facing Indigenous visual storytellers: “Indeed, it
seems almost Faustian to ask indigenous and minority groups to shoulder the
burden of educating the global populace at every turn regarding their unique
traditions, while at the same time juggling the finance- and process-dependent
complexity of feature filmmaking.”54
In 2018 Te Tumu Whakaata Taonga, the New Zealand Film Commission,
developed Te Rautaki,55 a new Māori strategy for 2019–2021, now headed by
prominent Māori producer and cultural expert Karen Te-O-Kahurangi Waa-
ka-Tibble. The Rautaki will provide wraparound support for Māori films and
filmmakers, and notably includes funding of up to $2 million for feature films
by Māori and a specific fund of up to $2.5 million for dramatic features in te reo.
Hopes are high that the Rautaki will honour the vision of Fourth Cinema by em-
powering tomorrow’s filmmakers with more creative freedom than was afforded
some of their predecessors.
CONCLUSION
As Indigenous scholars like Joanne DiNova have noted, the healing power of
Native voices is urgently needed in our battered and bruised globalized world.
Thankfully, “a growing number of people are prepared to listen to what we have
to say through our artworks, the best examples of which are infused with an ab-
original worldview.”56
This article has presented two small-budget films from Aotearoa NZ that
showcase Indigenous filmmakers (as writers, directors, producers, DOPs, and
composers, and in front of the camera) working within the constraints of the
commercial industry to produce works that stand firmly in the tradition of com-
munity-focussed Indigenous Fourth Cinema. “Cultural signifiers in their films
are not there for window dressing but serve as central plot points in their films’
narratives.”57 Moreover, their strong focus on spiritual and otherworldly real-
ities existing within the contemporary world demonstrates that Indigenous
spiritual realism still has a key role to play within Fourth Cinema in the twenty-
first century.

These filmmakers’ talent and cultural integrity have enabled them to work
alone (TPB) and in partnership with cultural outsiders (TSOW) to produce nu-
anced, sensitive works that foreground Indigenous cultural and spiritual ways of
being as evolving, living beliefs, attitudes, and practices. Highlighting the phys-
ical and symbolic role of land, water, and the natural world, while eschewing
postcard exotic romanticism and facile happy endings, these films offer complex
characters and poignant human dramas, combining the local with the universal,
using drama, music, and humour. Moreover, echoing the call of Barclay’s semi-
nal feature Ngāti (1987) for a generation of mixed-blood urban Māori New Zea-
landers to rediscover their roots, the films speak to such young, urban audiences,
many of whom are yet to begin such a journey.
The Pā Boys was very explicitly conceived as part of a cultural battle for sur-
vival against the shallow, dominant globalized digital culture that bombards the
world’s youth, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike, threatening to turn them
into the “junk generation.”58 Grace-Smith’s script for The Strength of Water is mo-
tivated by the same philosophy. Foregrounding aroha, care, and compassion as
supreme values, Māori and Indigenous film (as Fourth Cinema grounded in lo-
cal communities and cultures that have retained a strong ecological and spiritual
focus) is a necessary weapon in this ongoing battle.
NOTES
1. “Sky father is above, Earth mother below, The people in between, Behold, the breath of li-
fe!To our departed, greetings and farewell! Farewell on your spirit journey back to Hawaiki!To
you the living, Greetings, Greetings, Greetings to one and all!” (traditional greeting; author’s
translation).
2. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, State of the World’s Indigenous
Peoples (New York: United Nations, 2009), 61.
3. Hukarere Valentine, Natasha Tassell-Mataamua, and Ross Flett, “Whakairia Ki Runga: The
Many Dimensions of Wairua,” New Zealand Journal of Psychology 46.3 (2017): 64–71, 64.
4. See Deborah A.Walker-Morrison, “A Place to Stand: Land and Water in Māori Film,” Ima-
ginations 5.1 (2014): 25–47, which looks at four iconic Māori films—Ngāti (Barry Barclay,
1987), Mauri (Merata Mita, 1988), Once Were Warriors (Lee Tamahori, 1994), and Whale Ri-
der (Niki Caro, 2002)—in parallel with Paul Gilroy’s concept of “roots and routes,” to explore
the construction of identity as tūrangawaewae, “a place to stand”.
5. The relabelling of the spiritual as fantastical in the academic discourse of magic realism is
exemplified by the title of Tzvetan Todorov’s key text Introduction à la littérature fantastique
(Paris: Seuil, 1970).
6. Alexander N. Christakis and LaDonna Harris, “Designing a Transnational Indigenous Leaders
Interaction in the Context of Globalization: A Wisdom of the People Forum,” Systems Research
and Behavioral Science 21.3 (2004): 251–259, 251.
140 Walker-Morrison
7. Valentine, Tassell-Mataamua, and Flett, “Whakairia Ki Runga,” 65.

8. Māori Marsden, cited in Te Ahumaramū Charles Royal, ed., The Woven Universe: Selected Wri-
tings of Rev Māori Marsden (Otaki: Estate of Rev Māori Marsden, 2003), 47.
9. See, for example, Māori Marsden, “God, Man and Universe: A Māori View,” in Te Ao Hurihuri:
The World Moves On: Aspects of Maoritanga, ed. Michael King (Wellington: Hicks Smith, 1975),
117–137.
10. Rangimarie Rose Pere, Ako: Concepts and Learning in the Māori Tradition (Hamilton: University
of Waikato, 1982), 12.
11. My Māori whakapapa comes from my father and paternal grandparents. Our iwi (large tribal
grouping) is Ngāti Kahungunu; our waka is Takitimu; our hapu links are primarily to the Raa-
kai Paaka and Pahauwera of Nuhaka, Mahia, and Mohaka on the East Coast of the North Is-
land. Our maunga is Moumoukai and our awa is Te Nuhaka.
12. Valentine, Tassell-Mataamua, and Flett, “Whakairia Ki Runga,” 65.
13. Celebrated actor and writer Nancy Brunning (of Ngati Raukawa and Ngai Tuhoe) sadly passed
away of cancer on 16 November 2019. Moe mai e te tuahine, moe mai.
14. E.g., Jonathan Romney, “The Strength of Water,” ScreenDaily, 27 January 2009, https://www.
screendaily.com/the-strength-of-water/4042858.article.
15. Harriet Wild, “Creativity and Mourning in The Strength of Water,” Illusions 43–44 (2012):
13–18.
16. Louise Keller, “The Strength of Water, Review,” Urban Cinefile, last modified 25 March 2020,
http://www.urbancinefile.com.au/home/view.asp?a=16429.
17. Wild, “Creativity and Mourning,” 15.
18. The karanga (from the verb karanga, to call out, summon), an essential element of cultural pro-
tocol, is an exchange of calls chanted by women as a visiting group moves onto the marae or
into a formal meeting area.
19. In Once Were Warriors, after the suicide of the central couple’s daughter, director Lee Tamahori
also uses the karanga as a sound bridge to introduce the tangi scene (see Walker-Morrison, “A
Place to Stand,” 29).
20. Wild, “Creativity and Mourning,” 15.
21. Harry Dansey, “A View of Death,” in Te Ao Hurihuri: The World Moves On: Aspects of Maoritanga,
ed. Michael King (Wellington: Hicks Smith, 1975), 105–116.
22. Mason H. Durie, “A Maori Perspective of Health,” Social Science & Medecine 20.5 (1985): 483–
486, 483.
23. For more detailed discussion of Mauri, see Walker-Morrison, “A Place to Stand,” 34–37.
24. Full lyrics and English translation available via “Tīhore Mai Te Rangi,” New Zealand Folk Song,
last modified December 2009, http://folksong.org.nz/tihore/. Several versions of the song,
by contemporary Māori musicians, can be found on YouTube.
25. Barry Barclay, quoted in Peter Calder, “Spotlight: World Report: New Zealand: Riding High
on ‘Whale’ Tale,” Variety 393.5 (December 2003): A2.
26. All Himiona Grace quotes from Simon Foster, “Band of Brothers: The Himiona Grace Inter-
view,” Screen-Space, 7 March 2014, http://screen-space.squarespace.com/features/2014/3/7/
band-of-brothers-the-himiona-grace-interview.html.

27. See Walker-Morrison, “A Place to Stand.”

28. 2018 census data is not available at time of writing, but official government estimates put the po-
pulation at 744,800 on 30 June 2018: “Māori Population Estimates: At 30 June 2018,” Stats NZ
Tatauranga Aotearoa, 13 November 2018, https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/
maori-population-estimates-at-30-june-2018.
29. Nelly Gillett, “Présences et absences intrusives dans The Pā Boys, du réalisateur Māori, Mi-
miona Grace,” in Présences par effraction et par intrusion, ed. Anne-Cécile Guilbart and Pierre J.
Truchot (Poitiers: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2018): 47–55, 55.
30. The musical talents of the film’s writer-director, composer (Warren Maxwell, who also wor-
ked on TSOW), and lead actors are key to the film’s success. Both Fran Kora (former bass gui-
tarist-vocalist of the popular band Kora) and Matariki Whatarau are professional musicians,
currently both members of the Modern Maori Quartet. Some of the film’s songs were actually
written collaboratively during filming.
31. Vilsoni Hereniko, “The Pā Boys, Review,” The Contemporary Pacific 27.2 (2015): 573–576, 574.
32. Hereniko describes Tuteao’s Uncle Toa as “the most dignified and compassionate representation
of any Maori male I have ever seen in a film or read in a work of fiction. It is reminiscent of Patri-
cia Grace’s character Hemi in her profound novel Potiki, as well as Himiona Grace’s late father,
Kerehi Waiariki Grace, to whom The Pā Boys is dedicated.” Hereniko, “The Pā Boys, Review,” 574.
33. “While the esteem with which tōhunga are held in Māori society has not diminished over time,
punitive legislative practices such as the Tōhunga Suppression Act 1907, which may have been
motivated by goodwill and the desire to achieve enhanced well-being outcomes for Māori, at
least from the perspective of prominent Māori, like Maui Pōmare, who supported the Act, ulti-
mately saw the outlawing of traditional Māori healing methods and the invalidation of tōhunga,
as well-being practitioners.” Valentine, Tassell-Mataamua, and Flett, “Whakairia Ki Runga,” 65.
34. Marsden, “God, Man and Universe,” 129.
35. Marsden, 129.
36. The circle of nine sculptures on Mount Hikurangi was carved by a group of students under the
guidance of local Māori artist Derek Lardelli to represent the story of Maui and the four points
of the compass. The works were commissioned by Ngāti Porou in 1999, for the millennium
celebrations. See Tamati Muturangi Reedy, “Maui on Mount Hikurangi,” in “Ngāti Porou - An-
cestors,” Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, last modified 1 March 2017, https://www.
teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/641/maui-on-mt-hikurangi.
37. Hereniko, “The Pā Boys, Review,” 574.
38. Films mentioned by Hereniko as Māori classics include Te Rua (Barry Barclay, 1991), Utu
(Geoff Murphy, 1983), Mauri, Once Were Warriors, Whale Rider, The Maori Merchant of Venice
(Don Selwyn, 2002), and Boy (Taika Waititi, 2010).
39. Bennett, quoted in Davinia Thornley, Cinema, Cross-Cultural Collaboration, and Criticism: Fil-
ming on an Uneven Field (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 90.
40. “The Strength of Water: Producer Fiona Copeland Talks about Making the Film,” NZ on Screen,
video, 04:04, https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/the-strength-of-water-2009 (accessed
15 March 2020).
41. Dansey, “A View of Death,” 108.
142 Walker-Morrison

43. Hereniko, 575–576.
44. Barry Barclay, Our Own Image: A Story of a Māori Filmmaker (Auckland: Longman Paul, 1990).
45. Merata Mita, “The Soul and the Image,” in Film in Aotearoa New Zealand, ed. Jonathan Dennis
and Jan Bierninga (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1992), 36–54, 49.
46. “The Strength of Water: Writer Briar Grace-Smith Talks about the Film,” NZ on Screen, video,
08:19, https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/the-strength-of-water-2009 (accessed 15 March
2020).
47. Grace, quoted in Foster, “Band of Brothers,” para. 14.
48. “Producer Fiona Copeland Talks about Making the Film.”
49. Thornley, Cinema, Cross-Cultural Collaboration, and Criticism, 83.
50. Ngā Aho Whakaari, “NAW and Te Paepae – Statement,” Ngā Aho Whakaari: Māori in Screen
Production, 31 March 2014, https://ngaahowhakaari.co.nz/naw-and-te-paepae-statement-2/,
para. 4.
51. Grace, quoted in Hereniko, “The Pā Boys, Review,” 575.
52. Stuart Murray, Images of Dignity: Barry Barclay and Fourth Cinema (Wellington: Huia, 2008),
56.
53. Brendan Hokowhitu and Vijay Devadas, ed., The Fourth Eye: Māori Media in Aotearoa New Zea-
land (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2013), 109.
54. Thornley, Cinema, Cross-Cultural Collaboration, and Criticism, 87.
55. “Ngā Kōkiri Whāngai o Te Mahere Whakatinana Rautaki 2018–2021,” New Zealand Film
Commission, last modified 30 April 2018, https://www.nzfilm.co.nz/new-zealand/te-rauta-
ki-m%C4%81ori/ng%C4%81-k%C5%8Dkiri-wh%C4%81ngai-o-te-mahere-whakatinana-
rautaki-2018-2021.
56. DiNova, quoted in Thornley, Cinema, Cross-Cultural Collaboration, and Criticism, 115.
58. Grace, quoted in Foster, “Band of Brothers,” para. 15.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Deborah Walker-Morrison is Associate Professor of French at the University
of Auckland, Aotearoa, New Zealand. She is of mixed European and Māori an-
cestry; her primary iwi affiliations, through her father and paternal grandpar-
ents, are to Ngāti Kahunungu ki Wairoa, Raakai Paaka of Nuhaka and Mahia,
and Ngāti Pahauwera of Mohaka. She also has ancestral links to Ngai Tamanu-
hiri/Tahupo of Maraetaha and Tūranganui-a-Kiwa (Gisborne). Walker-Mor-
rison’s teaching and research interests include French cinema, postcolonial
translation (especially Indigenous film and literature), second language teach-
ing, and Indigenous studies. In the field of Māori cinema, she teaches an un-
dergraduate course and has published several articles, supervised research, and
delivered lectures at universities, film schools, museums, and festivals in Aotea-
roa, France, New Caledonia, French Polynesia, and Canada. She is currently

chair of the Kaporangi Kiriata Māori Film Arts Trust and co-director of the
Wairoa Māori Film Festival.
L’AUTEURE
Deborah Walker-Morrison est professeure de français à l’Université
d’Auckland, Aotearoa, Nouvelle-Zélande. D’ascendance européenne et maorie,
ses principales affiliations tribales, par son père et ses grands-parents paternels,
la relient à plusieurs clans de la côte est de l’Ile du Nord : Ngāti Kahunungu
ki Wairoa, Raakai Paaka de Nuhaka et Mahia ; Ngāti Pahauwera de Mohaka ;
Ngai Tamanuhiri / Tahupo de Maraetaha, Tūranganui-a-Kiwa (Gisborne). Wal-
ker-Morrison enseigne et publie dans divers domaines, dont le cinéma français,
la traduction post-coloniale (en particulier le cinéma et la littérature autoch-
tones), l’enseignement des langues secondes et les études autochtones. Dans le
domaine du cinéma maori, elle enseigne un cours de premier cycle, a publié plu-
sieurs articles, dirigé des recherches et donné des conférences en Nouvelle Zé-
lande, en France, en Nouvelle-Calédonie, en Polynésie française et au Canada.
Elle est actuellement présidente du Kaporangi Kiriata Māori Film Arts Trust et
codirectrice du WMFF (Festival du film maori de Wairoa).
144 Walker-Morrison

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https://utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/cjfs.29.1.07 - Sunday, June 05, 2022 12:19:23 PM - UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO MISSISSAUGA IP Address:142.150.190.

HAERENGA WAIRUA: SPIRIT(UAL)

Mots clés : 4e cinéma, autochtone, cinéma autochtone, cinéma postcolonial, réalisme

122 CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FILM STUDIES /

Keywords: Indigenous, Indigenous spirituality, Indigenous cinema, Fourth Cinema,

Ko Ranginui kei runga

SPIRIT(UAL) JOURNEYS IN TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY MAˉ ORI CINEMA 123

Cinema,” held in Montréal in August 2018 in association with Présence Autoch-

At the cosmological level, life is considered to have emerged through the

SPIRITUAL RESONANCES OF LAND AND WATER

SPIRIT(UAL) JOURNEYS IN TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY MAˉ ORI CINEMA 125

original waka, or canoe, that brought us to Aotearoa.11 Indeed, the element of

implying the existence of two entities, which paradoxically may be opposi-

The above aspects of land and water as powerful multilevel metaphors of

THE STRENGTH OF WATER

Director: Armagan Ballantyne; scriptwriter: Briar Grace-Smith; producer: Fiona

SPIRIT(UAL) JOURNEYS IN TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY MAˉ ORI CINEMA 127

The Power of Water

Melody’s untimely death precipitates Kimi into a symbolic spiritual battle

SPIRIT(UAL) JOURNEYS IN TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY MAˉ ORI CINEMA 129

Tlˉhore mai te rangi (Clear Up Sky)

Water is not simply a positive symbol of cleansing, fluidity, emotional and

THE PAˉ BOYS

Spiritual Roots and Routes

SPIRIT(UAL) JOURNEYS IN TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY MAˉ ORI CINEMA 131

From Intrusion and Exclusion to Cultural Inclusion

Reconnecting with whakapapa

SPIRIT(UAL) JOURNEYS IN TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY MAˉ ORI CINEMA 133

spiritually sanctioned individuals with expertise in aspects of well-being,

CULTURAL SPECIFICITY, AUTHENTIC CHARACTERS, AND

Non-Indigenous reviewers of both films remarked on their authenticity and

SPIRIT(UAL) JOURNEYS IN TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY MAˉ ORI CINEMA 135

TOTEM ANIMALS, DREAM-WORKS, AND SPIRIT JOURNEYS

KO TE MEA NUI, KO TE AROHA: LOVE IS THE GREATEST

Māori cultural experts note that traditional attitudes to violent or accidental

ENACTING FOURTH CINEMA: PRINCIPLES AND

With a small budget in mind we knew shooting in places where we have

SPIRIT(UAL) JOURNEYS IN TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY MAˉ ORI CINEMA 137

actually my Aunty’s place where I hung out as a kid. Wharekaahu, the

In his tribute to Barry Barclay, Stuart Murray reiterates Barclay’s recogni-

SPIRIT(UAL) JOURNEYS IN TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY MAˉ ORI CINEMA 139

7. Valentine, Tassell-Mataamua, and Flett, “Whakairia Ki Runga,” 65.

SPIRIT(UAL) JOURNEYS IN TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY MAˉ ORI CINEMA 141

27. See Walker-Morrison, “A Place to Stand.”

42. Hereniko, “The Pā Boys, Review,” 574.

SPIRIT(UAL) JOURNEYS IN TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY MAˉ ORI CINEMA 143

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