Greg and Zanna watch a landmark movie about a landmark moment.
SCORES
Action: 1
Power: 5
SHE SAW
Te Matakite o Aotearoa is a perfect time capsule - not only of New Zealand's 1970s cultural climate, infrastructure, stubbies and station wagons but of documentary film-making. Director Geoff Steven was all hopped up on cinema verite inspiration - the cutting-edge documentary style of the era - and nearly 50 years later it's proved to be a wise decision. I can imagine a version of this film following the 1975 Māori Land March in which Steven, a Pākeha man, smears himself and his ideas all over the film's narrative of the march, but instead he steps back and watches.
It's an inspiring film, featuring familiar faces like Eva Rickard, Dame Whina Cooper and many more I can't name, because while their faces are familiar there are no on-screen titles. Steven's commitment to his verite vision might've gone a bit too far because titles could've really helped me out. Even the end credits are remarkably bare. There's a voice-over at the beginning that may or may not belong to Tama Poata, who knows? A stirring poem is performed - "I need a haversack, who will lend me one?" - but by who? I scoured the internet, Greg scoured the internet. He found it was by Hone Tuwhare but it shouldn't have been that hard.
Absent exposition aside, taking the road with Te Roopu o te Matakite is very moving. Their conviction, their mana and their pain at the loss of their land is felt strongly throughout the film. I was particularly moved by a kuia on the bus who told a story about her mother's dying wish that she repair and rebuild her house on their land and the land of their ancestors in the Far North. She spoke in English but frequently fell back into te reo, when she couldn't find the words in her second language. When she rebuilt the house, "Town and Country" called her in for a meeting and told her that she must remove it because it was not her whānau land at all any more. That was 50 years ago.