Reviews and notes

Merata Mita's first feature, MAURI, is a brave attempt to fuse film genres into an epic story with recurring themes of birth, life and death.

Set in a small New Zealand community of the late 1950s, the pic is superbly mounted (lensing by Graeme Cowley) but lacks that clarity of storyline and convincing character motivation/interplay necessary to achieve its ambitions. A confused focus, and some inexperienced acting, ultimately undermine a powerful universal tale.

At one level MAURI is suspense, Rewi (Anzac Wallace), on the run from prison, finds refuge in a Maori community. His presence is mysterious and ambiguous, even though he professes kin connections. An old woman, Kara (Eva Rickard), befriends him without too many questions, and Ramari (Susan Paul) falls in love with him even though she is determined to marry a European, Steve (James Heyward).

On another level MAURI is about a rural Maori community under pressure, facing the threat of loss of land and the impact of its young people migrating to the cities.

The most profound intent of MAURI, which means life force, is to evoke the ebb and flow of a community, and the individual lives that comprise it, through the eyes of a young girl Awatea (Rangimarie Delamere) who lives with Kara.

Juggling these elements of thriller, love story, psychological drama and epic documentary, the story ends with the recapture (but personal redemption) of Rewi, the death of Kara and new awareness for Awatea.

The greatest strengths of MAURI lie in its visuals. Cowley's camera tracks the coastal landscape of the setting and delivers big gestures - the sudden pulling of a blind, the swoop of a heron - often with stunning effect. It is not enough.

What the film lacks is a sure, creative center. In its telling, the story proves too disconnected and diffuse with the love triangle involving Rewi, Ramari and Sieve underwritten and unconvincing.

While there are flares of inspiration and delight in the performances of Delamere, as Awatea, and Willie Raana, a natural, as Uncle Willie, such moments are rare.

Neither Rickard, as Kara, nor Geoff Murphy, overplaying outrageously as the redneck European, Mr. Semmens, convincingly bear the necessary weight-of-age to make these important characters credible.
-Nic, Variety.

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