CINEMA: Stanley Peskin
THE opening shot of a lake and mountains in Lee Tamahori’s Once Were Warriors is seminal. Throughout the film it sticks in the memory as an image of a once tranquil world that has been lost. Within a space of a few seconds, the camera tracks back to reveal crowded streets and bars, industrial waste and a street gymnasium: all the hallmarks, in fact, of urban sprawl.
If the city is disintegrative, Tamahori’s film movingly shows that the rituals that bespeak calm and sanity are capable of being recovered and that people — in this instance, individual members of a Maori family — can be warriors again.
Riwia Brown’s screenplay has a double thrust, the one domestic, the other political. Oppression is the keynote in both arenas: a mother and daughter are oppressed by the men in their society, and the Maoris are not only the victims of white bigotry but of strife within their own community. To his wife Beth (magnificently played by the imperious looking and yet vulnerable Rena Owen), Jake Heke (performed with just the right defensiveness and bewilderment by Temuera Morrison) says: “Fucking Maoris who think they’re better than the rest of us … bastards, living in the fucking past.”
Treatment of Beth Heke and her daughter, Grace, is built around two stories, the one fictional, the other true. Grace tells her younger sisters about a sprite who lives at the bottom of a huge lake where she must prevent flooding in order to protect the people. Ultimately Grace (poignantly performed by Mamaengaroa Kerr-Bell) is unable to protect herself from assault. There is a painful irony in the words of a song sung by a religious group: “This is the day the Lord has made grace walk through the streets.” Shortly afterwards, we see Grace in an alleyway: the long shot accompanied by the sound of rain and thunder emphasises her isolation and helplessness.
In the second story, Beth describes her own history: she abandoned her family and a lake district to marry a man disliked by her parents, and she has vowed never to return. Beth, the beautiful bride of her tribe, finds herself battling the machismo values of her husband, who is angrily aware that he “comes from a long line of slaves”.
She attempts not only to establish her own independence but to protect her children from his self-enslavement to drink, the fist and himself. Unlike her daughter, she is a survivor. Recognising that she has choice, she rebels against her husband’s self-pity and is able to say: “Our people once were warriors. I can survive anything.” She takes the place of the absent subject in the title of the film.
The concern with warriorhood is extended into the treatment of Beth’s sons, Nig (Julian Arahanga) and Boogie (Taungaroa Emile). In the case of the former, it is made clear that the street gang he wants to join is fake. The members may wear warpaint and dress in leather but they are not true warriors. Boogie, who is remanded to the care of a social welfare organisation, learns to respect the official in command who teaches him that true warriorhood is based in ancestral lore and self-discipline: “Your mind will be your weapon.”
If we are constantly made aware of the infiltration of American values into Maori society and of a juke-box mentality which has corrupted the indigenous culture, we are also awed by the surprising power of the action and by the account of a life that often transforms melodramatic incident into tragic grandeur.
DONIZETTI: Don Pasquale
(RCA Victor Red Seal)
FEW more delightful opera sets have been released recently. For long Muti’s delectable set (EMI) had the field almost to itself, with perhaps only Ferro’s more subtle version (Erato) a serious challenger. Roberto Abbado has now assembled a strong cast — Renato Bruson (Don Pasquale), Eva Mei (Norina), Frank Lopardo (Ernesto) and Thomas Allen (Malatesta). All sing every note truly and act with conviction, so that the characters become flesh and blood. Mei, in particular, is a constant joy, a cheeky but smiling Rosina, with exemplary coloratura skills. Add to the proficient singers Abbado’s alert and finely poised conducting, making the most of the comical and serious sides of the score, and the product is a winner, by a narrow margin outclassing its rivals.
JOSEF SUK: Piano Works (Meridian)
THIS is the first in a projected complete survey of Josef Suk’s piano literature, played by South African- born Niel Immelman, now attached to the Royal College of Music in London. The most ambitious work recorded here is the 10-piece cycle Things Lived and Dreamt. Immelman’s playing never quite catches the varied moods of these imaginative miniatures, and his passage work is often rather uneven. It is only in the Humoresque that his rather bland style of playing rescues the piece from being branded banal. Margaret Fingerhut (Chandos) is more inspired.
SHIELLS/RICHARDS: Flute Salad (Claremont GSE)
LESLIE SHIELLS (flute) and Jill Richards (piano) present a scrumptious selection of flute delights — from Schumann’s Three Romances to a Donizetti flute sonata and miniatures by composers such as Chaminade, Doppler, Ravel, Saint-Saens and Taffanel. Shiells’ playing is always technically remarkable and eminently stylish, and he often makes more of lesser works than they deserve. Richards accompanies dutifully, if rather
FRANCI: African Oratorio (TPO)
THIS deeply moving work is the composer’s inspired response to Africa. Traditional choral material by P Mohapeloa and Mzilikazi Khumalo is retained untouched in a capella sections. In other sections, notably the poignant lullaby Hei, t’hola, t’hola, the marriage of the contemporary and African traditional is a happy one. A narrator (Christian Dhlamini) unites the sections. The Bonisudumo Adult and kwaThema Youth Choirs sing with feeling, while international opera star Martina Arroyo brings poise and great tenderness to the lullaby. Paul Bagshaw (flute) excels in the jazzy Inglovo. The Transvaal Philharmonic Orchestra shines for conductor Franci. The filler is Franci’s Argonauta Argo: Viaggio in una conchiglia, an electronic piece portraying a fantasy journey inside the spirals of a shell from the tropical seas. A fascinating disc.