Fine Line Features | Once Were Warriors

An Interview with Warriors Director Lee Tamahori

Americans are either ignorant of or have misconceptions about the Maori. How would you explain their place in New Zealand history and society?

The Maori are the indigenous people of New Zealand. They now comprise 12% of the population (of 3,000,000) but they used to be far greater in number before we were colonized by the British. With the arrival of the British, there were land wars fought in the 19th century, long and arduous and unlike any other wars fought with indigenous people because the Maori fought back very, very well, resulting in a treaty which is still in effect to this day. Within this treaty, both Maori and the European whites of New Zealand have certain rights enshrined, like a constitution. These rights have sometimes been trampled on in the 80 years since the land wars but, in the late 20th century, they've been revamped to a certain degree by which a lot more attention is paid to them.

The Maori have a very strong place in New Zealand society, they always have. They are very closely connected with the land, very spiritual (like most indigenous peoples), very tied to intangible things unlike Europeans. Their place now, however, is one of an industrialized society, and one of a kind of alienation, which is what our film is about. There's a growing number of disenfranchised Maori who are losing touch with their own culture and society in general. Maori now constitute a large portion of the prison population and there's a lot of anti-social problems creeping in -- welfare dependency, unemployment, alcoholism.

Unlike other indigenous peoples of the world, there was no genocide ever practiced upon the Maori and they were never forcibly removed to other areas, so, by and large, our history is one of an appreciation of both cultures and intermarriage amongst them. There's probably a higher percentage of intermarriages between Maori and Europeans than with any other indigenous peoples. There's no overt racism and, if there are racist tendencies, they tend to be hidden and they never come to the surface. Should it appear, it gets trampled on very quickly. So, it's a very homogenous society but that's a bit of an illusion because the gap between rich and poor is widening and that has tended to make the Maori much more of an underclass.

Most Maori today have a lot of European in them. It's hard to find anyone that's pure Maori anymore. Of course, that means that there are many people who look white, like myself, who actually have a lot of Maori in them.

Why was Alan Duff's novel so controversial?

No one had ever written anything like this before. No white person could write a story like this, they would be vilified and run out of town, chased down with guns and knives. It had to come from someone who was Maori and Alan Duff knew this life pretty well, he grew up in it so only he could write about it. Of course that bred a lot of controversy, certainly amongst the intelligensia and a radical element who are interested in a revisionist history of Maori whereby only positive images are presented rather than ever showing the downside. Duff is a very controversial man because he has taken on a huge amount of self-appointed responsibility about articulating what's wrong with the Maori people. He draws a lot of fire and a lot of flack. The movie, of course, attracted the same controversy but once it was made, all the controversy died away because our film was seen to be quite different from his book. We fundamentally changed the structure of the novel so that there's a lot more hope, heart and positive things in there, without destroying the infrastructure or very violent core of it. We retained all that and yet we gave a lot more positive pointers. That's why, I think, once people who were very opposed to our film saw what we did, there was a large measure of unspoken forgiveness on their part because they could see that it wasn't the "beat up" they thought it would be.

[Fine Line Home] [ Warriors Home] [Warriors Synopsis]