LiC: Once Were Warriors

Once Were Warriors is a Maori movie about a woman trying to hold her family together amidst poverty and changing times, giving a raw look into domestic violence and the place of native families in a modern civilization.

I said it, okay? It's a movie about a Maori woman (Beth) that tries to keep her family together although she has an abusive husband that can't keep a job or stay out of fights, children that recognize the dysfunction of the family and look for their own escapes, finding them in very different places, a husband that can't pull himself out of a anger, alcohol filled world and into a cleaner one for his children. At multiple times do we see the husband, Jake "the Muss" Heke take a single beer only for it to turn into ten, his intractability over anyone else's decisions due to him being the "Man" of the house, forcing the world to be "his way or the high way." We see an eldest son escaping into a gang in a search for a true family, a group of kids in adult bodies tattooing their bodies to somehow reconnect with the old traditions, a bright eldest daughter trying to escape with education, reading books to siblings and a local homeless druggie her own age before she's raped by a family friend and eventually committing suicide, a middle son not knowing where to go, dragged along with the crowd into stealing cars and stripping them, caught and sent to boarding school where he reconnects with his past. Once Were Warriors is a touching - and graphic film about poverty and life - about surviving when there's no place left to fall.

On language use: The majority of the film is in English, with scattered Maori in between. The use of languages reveals a culture disconnect - Jake and his friends only use English, whether at the bar getting into fights or at home singing songs before beating his wife, while Maori appears mostly in the saddest of circumstances - where promises are not kept, such as being unable to visit Boogie at the boarding home, or wailing over the death of Grace. Maori focuses on reconnects and bringing the family back in touch with their roots, used to communicate with Beth's family on bringing Grace's body home and in the scenes at the boarding house where Boogie learns the Haka.

For anyone looking to learn more about life in poverty or simply looking for a good drama, Once Were Warriors is a must watch.