White Lies

by Witi Ihimaera

  By the early 1830s, Tuhoe were equipped. They became involved in extensive attacks on other tribal groups in the central North Island. It is from the fighting in these years that a seminal oral narrative of Tuhoe, which would be reworked over time, emerges: the story of Paora Kiingi I (Paora Te Au or Te Tawai), who chose to halt the fighting.

  A senior grandson of Te Unuaraki, Paora Kiingi I assembled a vast military expedition intended to avenge his grandfather’s death in battle at Whangara, on the East Coast. The Mataatua waka tribes co-operated in building a large canoe out of a totara felled in the Huiarau ranges, but it did not leave the mouth of the Whakatane River. At the feast held just before their planned departure in 1829, Paora Kingii I aborted the expedition. Instead, accompanied by his uncle, Te Whenuanui I, he journeyed to the East Coast to create ‘te tatau pounamu’ (the greenstone door of peace), a binding covenant.

  Encircled Lands, Te Urewera, 1820–1921, Judith Binney (Bridget Williams Books, 2009)

  In the film, Paraiti journeys from the initial belief that victory is only accomplished through an act of revenge, to the eventual discovery that no one ever wins unless it is through the resolution of ‘te tatau pounamu’, the covenant of peace — no matter the name of the enemy, or the colour of their skin. This is an element that deepens Paraiti’s connection to the identity and history of the Tuhoe, and at the same time gives her the universality of someone who honours humanity and whose heart is capable of compassion beyond race.

  I feel privileged and honoured for the opportunity I had in this film to rework this piece of Tuhoe history.

  THE STORY: ABOUT

  COLONIALISM AND IDENTITY

  Faced with the imposition of a foreign cosmogony — as the colonial phenomenon is, no matter in which part of the world or when in history it happens — there are two separate questions that hold the key to survival:

  Who are we?

  Where do we belong?

  The research of this theme was the main motivation that guided me through the process of writing the script. This is what the film White Lies — Tuakiri Huna is all about.

  Tradition or assimilation? Tolerance or denial? Life or death? Utu or a covenant of peace?

  To place such questions and find the answers, I changed the inner motivation of the characters and the dramatic dynamics between them. The intention behind this narrative structure is to provide each one of the characters in the film with the role of expressing and embodying their search. Paraiti, Rebecca Vickers, Maraea and the unborn baby are shaped in the film to give voice and meaning to the very core of the discovery and creation of their true identities. The dramatic element that ignites and fuels the narrative of this film is the experience of motherhood, the primal and universal symbol of identity, continuity and life.

  In the film, Paraiti, Rebecca Vickers and Maraea — our three main characters — are bonded by a pregnancy that each one of them faces from different and opposing perspectives. An unborn child, the very symbol of hope and the future, becomes a main character in the story, imposing on each one of these women inescapable confrontations. The challenges and choices that Paraiti, Rebecca Vickers and Maraea face will finally guide each to find out who they are and where they belong, even when such a discovery points to a tragic destiny.

  The journey of these women is not only a symbol of how the fabric of contemporary New Zealand was woven, but also a fable of hope in a world still not aware of the very simple truth that the choice of creation over destruction, tolerance instead of suppression, is the only possible way.

  THE DYNAMICS BETWEEN CHARACTERS:

  TUAKIRI HUNA, A DANCE OF HIDDEN IDENTITIES

  In the novella Medicine Woman, Witi Ihimaera holds the dramatic action through a narrative structure of two parallel forces — Paraiti and Rebecca Vickers. Maraea, in the novella, retains her Maori identity but is basically a passive element as the silent servant obedient to the wishes of her daughter and mistress.

  In the screenplay and later on in the film, Maraea goes through a radical transformation. She becomes the most active element in the drama; she is the unseen designer and doer of all, the puppet master behind all actions. It is Maraea who imposes on Rebecca Vickers the bleaching of her skin, kidnapping the true Maori identity from her daughter.

  Rebecca Vickers, then, is the result of her mother’s wishes. She is, in the film, the one who has become an obedient servant to what her mother thought ‘would be best for her’ even if, by doing so, she has destroyed all references to who Rebecca Vickers is in the world. In the film she is a lost and bleached soul pretending to be a grande dame in a silent and lonely golden cage.

  Through the manipulation of Maraea’s hidden strings, the dynamic between the three women in the film becomes a constant confrontation of masked faces and buried secrets, a trap of White Lies. Inside that trap, each one of them is an antagonist to the other, and yet, at the same time, they all need one another to survive their actions and the consequences of their choices. In this triangular narrative structure, the three main characters in the film become active participants in the drama.

  In the film, there is a completely new narrative element that triggers Paraiti’s decision to go back to the villa of Rebecca Vickers and terminate the pregnancy. Paraiti is an impotent witness to the death of a young Maori mother and her unborn baby. Aroha and her child die in a Pakeha clinic, where Paraiti is humiliated by the matron in charge, and she is powerless when threatened with being sent to jail ‘only for having medicinal herbs’. Not only that, but Paraiti is incapable of saving the most sacred symbol of maternity in the Maori universe: the whenua (the placenta) of the dead mother, which, instead of being returned to the land and the ancestors, is thrown on the rubbish heap of the hospital, as if it is a piece of garbage.

  This event becomes the major turning point for Paraiti. It is the living experience of an undeniable reality that her world, the universe of her ancestors and the very possibility of continuity of her culture, is crumbling under the power of the imposition of a new and foreign law.

  The burial of the placenta becomes, in the film, a major symbol; the symbol of identity, continuity and of restoration of justice. It is the greenstone door of peace, ‘te tatau pounamu’.

  THE CHARACTERS: TELLING WHITE LIES

  In terms of the motivations that guide the actions of each of the three main characters in the story, there are important changes from the original novella Medicine Woman to the script and film White Lies — Tuakiri Huna.

  PARAITI: THE MEDICINE WOMAN

  An important difference in the configuration of Paraiti as a cinematographic character is that in the original novella Medicine Woman, Paraiti is not a mediator between the human world and the spiritual world.

  In the script and the film, Paraiti grows from initially being someone who can only deal with minor infections of the body to a medicine woman who finds, precisely in the spiritual world, the answers to her doubts and the strength to cross territories of darkness and emerge from them with the purest and most sacred of all forms: the new life of a baby. This process of growth is the map and the compass to her journey through the film.

  Another fundamental change in the film is the fact that Paraiti decides to save Rebecca’s baby before she knows it is a Maori child. She fights for the life of the unborn child regardless of the colour of its skin. This was for me a crucial element to convey as storyteller and a vital condition to the configuration of Paraiti, as it is the ultimate expression of her human quality, a quality that gives her the moral stature and power to offer Rebecca Vickers redemption. This is a redemption that can only happen by Rebecca reclaiming her own identity and making peace with her motherhood. In the film, Paraiti gifts Rebecca Vickers the freedom that can come from the truth, from the possibility of making her own choices, and invites her to start a new life with her baby daughter, far from a life enslaved by white lies, under a ‘tuakiri huna’.

  REBECCA VICKERS: A SKIN BLEACHED WHITE

  In t
he original novella Medicine Woman, pale white skin is a ticket for Rebecca Vickers into Pakeha high society. Bleaching her skin is a choice she takes, and ultimately uses, along with the sexual attraction of her youth, to ‘catch the eye’ of her rich and much older white husband. Her inner motivations are purely greed and vanity.

  Contrastingly, in the film, the bleached skin of Rebecca is the most tangible reflection of the conflict which gives meaning to the film: the dilemma of identity.

  Maraea’s decision to bleach her daughter’s skin is what, in her eyes, will save her daughter from the suffering that being a half-caste would cause her, yet ultimately it robs Rebecca of her true identity. Maraea’s ways are wrong and twisted, but her ultimate motivation for bleaching Rebecca’s skin is a wish for a better life for her daughter, ‘not the life of a pariah’ like her own. This, to me, encapsulates the very reason for creating the film White Lies — Tuakiri Huna.

  In the novella, Rebecca’s child is a result of a moment of adulterous passion. In the script, however, the child is the product of Mr and Mrs Vickers’ marriage. Rebecca’s conflict is not of infidelity, but rather resides within her own concealed identity and the fear of being discovered and rejected as one of the people her husband considers savages.

  In the novella Medicine Woman, maternity is never a positive experience for Rebecca. Anatomically she carries her child, but emotionally she is completely disconnected and her only aim is to erase any possibility of existence for the baby.

  In the film there is a transformation in the way Rebecca experiences motherhood. The bleached and destroyed woman who descends to the basement of the villa to give birth in the old traditional Maori way is a different person from the mother who emerges once the baby has been born. This is the transit of someone who has been living in absolute denial of herself and is finally redeemed by the restoration of her identity and her motherhood. It is her newborn daughter, a baby with brown skin, who finally liberates Rebecca from her past. This transit acquires, in the film, a sacred dimension that emerges from the presence of Paraiti, as a woman who walks in both the spiritual and temporal world.

  MARAEA: A DIFFERENT MOTHER

  In the original novella, Maraea holds on to her identity in a shy but significant manner. She prepares the birthplace for Rebecca in the old Maori ways and she tries to prevent the murder of her newborn granddaughter at the hands of Rebecca, who throws the baby into a river.

  In the film, Maraea is ready to do anything to wash from herself and from Rebecca any traces of her Maori blood. Not only did she bleach her daughter under the promise that ‘all will be better if you are white’, but she is also the one who finds Paraiti and brings her to see Rebecca Vickers to perform an abortion on her — the abortion of her own Maori grandchild. In the film, the character of Maraea is not there to obey the wishes of her mistress, but to fulfil her own purpose: the preservation of herself and Rebecca from the life of the vanquished, the colonised — the people with dark skin.

  In the last scene of the film between Maraea and Paraiti, the mother tells Paraiti, in a chilling and defeated voice, ‘At least my daughter has a life, a house, land … That is much more than I ever had, Paraiti. Much more than what you have.’ It is the terribly mistaken strategy of a mother, lost on the side of those who have been defeated and desperately looking for a way to ensure the survival of her daughter.

  THE LANGUAGE

  The use of te reo Maori and English in the film’s dialogue becomes a clear and precise way to express the clash between two different worlds and, at the same time, celebrates the identity of the film.

  Paraiti uses her language as an assertion of her identity and a tool to remind Maraea that no matter how properly she speaks in English she is and always will be a Maori woman.

  One of the most fascinating and revealing experiences during the process of writing this film was the transition from the original novella Medicine Woman, mainly written in English, to the language of te reo Maori of the Tuhoe people of Ruatahuna in the screenplay.

  In that process, every word acquired new and rich connotations. Through the deep knowledge of their language, the translators Kararaina Rangihau, Whitiaua Ropitini and Tangiora Tawhara took the dialogue to a place way beyond the functional purpose of naming, describing and communicating. They provided this film with a poetic cosmogony, music with multiple meanings and the organic, living expression of a profound, ancient, complex and holistic culture.

  THE VISUAL GEOGRAPHY

  The film has a diverse, powerful and vast source of visual inspiration. Each one of the many universes within this story has its own unique landscape and iconography, and each one is strongly attached to the individual identities of our three main characters. These territories are not only the natural environments for each of them, but they also reflect the worlds where they belong. They become an extension of the character’s dramatic narrative.

  Paraiti is an organic element within the green density of bush and humid light of the magnificent mountainous landscape of Te Urewera. Meanwhile, her marae is the sacred refuge where everything makes sense in her ancient understanding of life and the universe. A town created by the English settlers, with its shops, movie theatre and hospital, is the landscape within which Maraea wanders, sneaking from the corners, trying to blend into the Pakeha world. And, finally, the villa where Rebecca Vickers lives is a suffocating and closed trap … a cage that enslaves her, and a womb from which she will be reborn as a mother and where her identity will be redeemed.

  THE STYLE AND GENRE

  We have a film that touches intense, complex and violent issues. We chose to treat them with a gentle hand, seeking to create lyrical beauty not only in the images but also in the pace, the dialogue and the dramatic composition of the story.

  In terms of the work with the actors, a naturalistic style, an almost whispering fashion of acting, creates the precise emotional tone for this film. This, I believe, allows the audience to connect with the emotional journey of the characters, beyond the brutality of their experiences.

  The basic form of a psychological thriller served as an inspiration during the process of writing and imagining the film White Lies — Tuakiri Huna. This provided me with a simple and clear reference for how this film would function, the emotional place it would take us, and the tools with which it would be built. Two pivotal points of this film adaptation are the intense dynamics between the hidden faces and purposes of our three very strong characters and the narrative rhythm through which the unexpected mysteries of the film unfold.

  THE FINAL CHANGE: THE END OF THE FILM

  Cinema is a living, collective and utterly magical process. The duty and the pleasure of being a film director is to know how to listen to the inner voice of the story and allow it to flow towards the encounter of the characters and their true destiny, even if that means restructuring the narrative of the film itself. That is the indescribable miracle of filmmaking.

  I was blessed to have the most fascinating change of direction in the story while shooting the scenes of the delivery of Rebecca’s baby. The unique and amazing chemistry the actresses produced brought to the story a quality that was not in the original novella, nor in my script. The place where Rebecca, Maraea and Paraiti arrived at the end of their stories was the perfect closure to their journey and has given to this film the silent coherency it deserves.

  I can only be grateful to all those who made this happen and helped me listen and find the way from the beginning all the way to the true ending to this film.

  Dana Rotberg

  Scriptwriter and director of White Lies — Tuakiri Huna

  Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand

  * Tuakiri Huna: Tua: Beyond, on the other side of. Kiri: skin. Tuakiri, which combines both words, becomes: Identity, personality. Huna: To conceal or hide.

  SOURCE: ANI PRIP

  EXT. MAORI VILLAGE BY THE EDGE OF A

  LAKE — DAY

  PARAITI, a girl of barely 10 years, is seated on th
e ground in front of an orderly row of flowers, herbs and leaves of different colours and sizes, which are unfolded at her feet like a book. She is intently examining the design of the petals of a flower which she holds in her hands.

  The girl gently crushes the flower with her fingers, and brings her hands to her nose. She inhales the aroma given off by the broken, moist petals.

  Sitting beside the girl is her GRANDFATHER, who observes her with full concentration.

  Not far from them, the girl’s MOTHER and BROTHER are occupied sorting a pile of potatoes.

  The grandfather takes a bunch of dark green leaves out of an old kete and offers them to Paraiti.

  The girl smiles at her grandfather, takes the leaves from his hands and finds the right place to put them among the rest of the flowers and herbs lined up at her feet.

  It is the sound of hoofbeats forcefully hitting the ground that breaks Paraiti’s reverie.

  The nearly idyllic silence is extinguished by the cries of her mother and the sound of gun fire.

  In barely a few seconds, the landscape is confused, filled with a desperate disarray of people and animals racing in all directions.

  Paraiti sees a WHITE MAN thrust a flaming branch into the small patch of potatoes, which immediately bursts into flame.

  Paraiti tries to gather her bundle of herbs, but the hooves of a horse trample them.

  Paraiti watches as her grandfather is beaten and shoved along by TWO WHITE MEN.

  GRANDFATHER

  Paraiti!

  Suddenly, a hefty branch, licking with brilliant orange flames, violently slashes across her face.

  Stunned by the impact, Paraiti drops to the ground.

  Galloping close to her, the group of white men disappear on their horses as quickly as they came.

  The fury of the hoofbeats fades away, leaving behind only smoke and silence.

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