Worth: $15.00
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Cast:
Rena Owen, Miriama McDowell, Vinnie Bennett, Richard Te Are, James Rolleston, Erroll Shand
Intro:
… brings a critical figure in Aotearoan history to vivid, if somewhat sentimentalised, life.
Dame Whina Cooper was born in 1895 and died in 1994 and in her almost century long life was a firebrand activist for the Māori people in Aotearoa.
In 1975, at the age of 80 and riddled with arthritis, she led the Māori Land March from Te Hapua to Wellington (a distance of over 1000kms) to deliver a document that would become the basis of The Treaty of Waitangi Act – a law that cemented the rights of the Māori people to stop their land being taken by Pākehā New Zealanders. The march was her final protest, but her life was long filled with activism and rebellion.
Directors James Napier Robertson and Paula Whetu Jones have made a tribute to the trailblazing woman in Whina. In a non-linear manner, the directors attempt to encompass Whina’s triumphs and losses, from the moment of her birth in Whakarapa (later named Panguru) to the region’s leader and catechist Heremia Te Wake (Wayne Hapi) to the 1975 march.
Three women play the role of Whina. Rena Owen is the elder Whina, whose performance acts as a framing device for the film. Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne is the teenage Whina, who deliberately sabotages the drainage of a local Pākehā tenant farmer, getting her in trouble with the law for trespass. Whina is her father’s favourite child and to the distress of her brother Pita (James Tito), is next in line to lead the region’s people. After her father’s death, Whina (now played by Miriama McDowell) takes on the role of organising farming to ensure that her people can keep their land. She marries Richard Gilbert (Richard Te Are) and in between trying to advocate for the region, she also must take on the role of a housewife.
Whina travels south as a representative for her people to meet with powerful Māori leaders to discuss how to halt Pākehā seizure of land. While there, she encounters two things that will change her life: the young and charming William Cooper (Vinnie Bennett) and To whakairo (Māori carvings of ancestors and spiritual figures). In her home region, heavily Catholic, she hasn’t seen representation of Māori spirituality before.
While Richard is dying of cancer, Whina begins an affair with William. After Richard’s death, she announces to a hui that she is pregnant with William’s child and they intend to marry. She is instantly shunned from her community and is forced to leave. Taking her children from her marriage to Richard with her, Whina begins a new and more settled life with her beloved. As the years go by, she is made aware by her nephew Gabriel (James Rolleston) that Panguru is falling into disrepair with people no longer farming the land and leaving for more populated centres. Returning to Panguru despite her social shame, Whina begins building a Marae for the people which includes whakairo.
The opposition she faces in Panguru is exacerbated by the Catholic church seeing her Marae as a place that celebrates graven idols. In a dramatic (and concocted) scene, her Marae is set on fire – as William rushes to save it, he suffers a fatal heart attack. Once again, Whina is a pariah and with nothing but the clothes on her back, moves to Wellington.
Her experiences in Wellington lead her to become involved and eventually chair the Māori Women’s Welfare League, which interacted with all levels of government to find housing for Māori families who were living in poverty due to high levels of unemployment and racism.
Whina’s life was filled with obstacles that she fought to overcome. Sexism, racism, remaining true to her Catholic faith whilst embracing her heritage. Her people both needed her and at times despised her. In the film, the two obstacles are personified by her brother Pita and the local priest Father Mulder (Erroll Shand).
Rena Owen and Miriama McDowell deliver powerhouse performances as Whina; a complex and indomitable woman whose activism led her to be known as Te Whāea-o-te-Motu (Mother of the Nation). Yet, the performances don’t really give us much of an interior sense of Whina. Miriama McDowell spends the longest amount of time onscreen as the character and is steely and determined, and also deeply in love with William. She gives rousing speeches, but something is missing in the storytelling. Why did Whina become uncooperative with the board of Māori Women’s Welfare League? Why did she continue to embrace a faith that was brought by colonisers? Whina Cooper was a complex figure and an important one; but the directors seem at a loss to find a way to portray her that doesn’t fall into some deeply melodramatic traps and at times manufactured.
Despite obvious shortcomings, Whina brings a critical figure in Aotearoan history to vivid, if somewhat sentimentalised, life. For many New Zealanders, the footage of Whina’s march which eventually gained thousands of supporters crossing the bridge into Wellington, will be an indelible moment. For those outside of New Zealand, it is an opportunity to learn about a woman who fought for her people and who was so significant that at almost 80, a new generation of activists chose her as their figurehead.
