Having lived in NZ from 1960 I realised I knew very little of Maori and what they had to cope with.
The movie made me sad, mad and confronted!
Plot summary
Mata, Missy and Makareta. Three cousins. Three lives. Separated by circumstances, yet bound together by blood. Orphaned Mata believes she has no whanau and lives out her lonely childhood in fear and bewilderment. Back home on the land, educated Makareta flees an arranged marriage to study law and begin the search for her missing cousin. She leaves behind cheeky yet dutiful Missy who takes on her role of kaitiaki (guardian) of the land. As the years pass, loss of the family land seems imminent and the women's promise to bring their stolen cousin home seems more unlikely than ever, until a chance encounter changes everything.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
Director
Tech specs
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB 902.75 MB
1280*634
English 2.0
NR
Movie Reviews
Reviewed by
Confronting
Reviewed by
Whanau will alway be whanau.
This really captured my interest because it is a story of the experiences of our Maori people but I find it rather fragmented and does not go into the details of what happened to these women. It would have been better as a series describing more and connecting the timelines.
As it is. It is very poignant but not deep enough. It was just scratching the surface and does not explain so many things and leaves me with so many questions. Like why did Mata become homeless when she had a job?
Their life stories are poorly explained and more like raptured memoirs in a dream like state and does not capture the essences of their hurt loss of connection. The cousins alienation from one another and their separation from their land. Maybe a more personal narrative focused more on the total lifestory of one of the girls. It was just too short.
Reviewed by
10 Minutes Later - I Could Not Take it Any More...
Trope-filled Trash. After 2 minutes I was about to shut it down but figured I'd give it some more time. After 10 minutes I get the feeling I've seen this kind of show (trajectory of the show) a dozen times❗❗❗ I even jumped forward stopping sporadically to the end - not much better.
No Thank You.