In Cinemas now!
Rating: MA 15+
(Reviewed by John Glennie)
A powerful drama from New Zealand set in the remote Te Urewera region of the North Island – home to the Tūhoe people. Statements shown at the start of the movie gives the background:
In 1916, the NZ Government raided
the people of Tūhoe and their prophet Rua Kēnana
In 2007, the NZ Government raided
the people of Tūhoe and their activist Tame Iti
This film is not a recreation of
the police raids against the people of Tūhoe
It is a response
In Maori, MURU means ‘forgiveness’. Sergeant ‘Taffy’ Tāwharau (Cliff Curtis) has recently returned to the remote valley of Ruatoki to help look after his sick father. Part of his duty is also to drive the local school bus and take the Aunties to the mobile medical clinic! A close friend of his father is Tame Iti who runs Camp Rama where he teaches survival skills and aims to keep the Tūhoe identity alive. Taffy has never been to one of the camps but has been invited.
I gathered from some of the early scenes that some of the young locals are targeted by the police – including 16 year-old Rusty, who is also the nephew of police officer Blake (Ria Paki). None of the people in the community are aware that they have been under surveillance for 6 months under suspicion of domestic terrorism. When Rusty fires a rifle at another camp attendee, the security group, led by Captain Gallagher (Jay Ryan) escalate their monitoring.
Taffy is woken one night by a report of Rusty creating a disturbance. Taffy finds him with golf club in one hand and beer bottle in the other, smashing a shop window. Instead of arresting him he wrestles with the youngster and after making him promise to clean up the mess in the morning, takes him to Camp Rama. Taffy hear’s Tame’s words for the first time and it seems to hit home to the police officer. When the group start singing, Taffy notices movement in the distance and takes chase.
He is led to the surveillance van and is confronted by a relaxed Gallagher and fellow officer Maria (Simone Kessell). Taffy is given the choice to do his duty and help the police raid his community or be charged with collusion with a suspected terrorist training camp. Fearful of the potential impact on the community he agrees but only if the raid is on a non-school day.
However, next morning Taffy is doing his school bus run and Rusty, the broom in hand to clean up his mess, are confronted with a roadblock by the STG security group. The broken agreement leads to an escalation in proceedings and seems to become a bit of a shambles. So which direction does Taffy have to take? Help the security force raid the community or support his people in what looks like a massive injustice and mistake?
Definitely go to the cinema to watch this and find out the result – it is a compelling story and inspired by true events.
The History
To review this movie we were provided with the following history which I think is worth sharing.
Historical Context
The Tūhoe tribe resides in Te Urewera which is also home to Lake Waikaremoana and the sacred mountain Maungapōhatu. The region is isolated and has little room for farming. As such, the tribe has historically relied on the bush for food, clothing, and shelter which is predominantly situated in clearings and valleys. Due to this isolation, the Tūhoe people came into contact with English colonisers later than other tribes of Aotearoa. Since then, their relationship with the government has seen tension, with several instances of the Tūhoe people being falsely accused of crimes against the government or civilians.
MURU was inspired by the following events as well as the screenplay Toa by Jason Nathan.
The police arrest of Rua Kenana in 1916
Rua Kēnana was a prophet and community leader and in 1915 he was accused of selling alcohol illegally. Due to his outspoken opposition to Tūhoe men enlisting for service, the government used the opportunity to punish him after he failed to appear in front of the magistrate, leading to an armed invasion of Maungapōhatu. At this time, his son Toko, and his good friend, Te Maipi, were killed in a gunfire exchange. Rua was charged, and prosecuted, on charges of treason and resisting arrest and sentenced to 12 months’ hard labour and 18 months imprisonment.
The police shooting of Steven Wallace in 2000
Steven Wallace died in hospital after being fatally shot, four times, by Senior Constable Keith Abbott on April 30 2000. While it is unclear what drove Steven Wallace to destruction of property on that night, what is generally agreed is that, with the use of a golf club, he smashed windows and swung at cars and other property. One vehicle he hit was a police car. Senior Constable Keith Abbott arrived on the scene and claims negotiations were carried out with no resolution and, upon seeing Wallace advance with a baseball bat and golf club, shot him four times. Despite no one being injured and claims that Abbot was not in fear of his life, it was ruled he acted in self defence in both a police investigation and an independent review.
The police arrest of Tame Iti in 2007
Tame Iti is a Ngāi Tūhoe artist and activist. He is well-known for acting in protest against Crown treatment of Tūhoe and in 2005 shot a firearm at an Australian flag (in place of a New Zealand one) during a Waitangi Tribunal hearing at Tauarau Marae. He was convicted of firearms offences but these were overturned in 2007 by the Court of Appeal.
The 2007 New Zealand police raids were a series of armed police raids conducted on 15 and 16 October 2007, in response to alleged paramilitary training camps in the Urewera mountain range near the town of Rūātoki. These raids were highly controversial and the debate as to their legitimacy dominated politics, media, and national conversation. Tame Iti was one of 18 people arrested during these raids.
Charges including those of belonging to a criminal group and firearms offences. He was sentenced to two and a half years in prison before being released on parole in 2013 after being described as a model prisoner. Iti is said to have enjoyed his time in prison, having used the time to work on his art and writing and as a mechanic.
History of film conception and production
Early ideas for MURU the film were developed by Tearapa Kahi, Cliff Curtis and Tame Iti in 2015, following a trip to visit Tame at his office in a caravan overlooking the garden in Rūātoki. Iti and Kahi were known to one another with the latter’s father and father-in-law from their Ngā Tamatoa days Christchurch and school respectively. Kahi and Iti reconnected when Iti saw Kahi performing in Rūātoki with the Māori Theatre Company.
In 2003, having just wrapped the shoot of Te Tangata Whai Rawa o Weneti, an extra whom Kahi had befriended during the shoot handed him a script after the wrap party. He was the son of Anzac Wallace, Kahi’s favourite actor, of his favourite film and the screenplay was entitled Toa. It was about pig hunters in a small town that gets “Red Dawn’d” by a Police Force forcing the pig hunters to go on the run. Kahi filed it away, thinking it felt too much like “bush fantasy” and because Curtis was leaving town to shoot Three Kings.
Cliff Curtis and Kahi have had a longstanding relationship beginning in 2007 when Curtis was Executive Producer on Kahi’s short film Tauā: War Party. In October of that same year, after the film was delivered, police raided Ruatoki, Whakatāne, a Hostel in Wellington City and a home in Island Bay.
The beginnings of a story stayed in Kahi’s mind and soon many drafts of the script were written, from bush fantasy to detailed procedurals, but all dedicated to accuracy. On this, Kahi says “MURU grew beyond the events of a single day, into two unjustified police raids on the same tribe, a century apart, by the same Government who failed to understand that in Tūhoe, the past is always present. It moved beyond the historical and factual, into the allegorical. It evolved into a response to what was, with a hope that it is never again.” He continues, saying that the “depth of the accuracy resembles little more than a depiction of Government foolishness.” He believed that the police raid against Tūhoe was an opportunity to speak beyond the cultural missteps of a single operation and with that realisation,MURU’s story scope grew.
This is a film that sheds light on the dilemma facing every indigenous person who carries the civic responsibility of protecting or serving. And it became a personal story, powered by the belief that an apology has the power to heal – “for Tame, for Steven and the many people in our Government who felt this was their only course of action – to beat the door down with weapons and live rounds, rather than take up the invitation to walk inside.”
On the character of Taffy (Cliff Curtis) and his costume in the show, Kahi wanted him to be in blue uniform throughout the film because, he believes, no matter the officer’s station – township, region, province, city, island, a country this big – “there’s no excuse not to stay human first”.
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