Dead Lands, The (2015)
Gareth Jones
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Starring James Rolleston, Lawrence Makoare, Te Kohe Tuhaka, Xavier Horan, Raukura Turei
Directed by Toa Fraser
We’re stepping back in time to the heyday of the Maori tribes of New Zealand in director Toa Fraser’s The Dead Lands. Hongi (Rolleston) is the son of his tribe’s chief and successor to the title. As the film opens, a group of warriors from a neighbouring tribe – led by chieftain’s son Wirepa (Tuhaka) – is visiting Hongi’s people in order to gain access to a place where the bones of their ancestors, following a previous war between the tribes, lie.
Under the pretense of taking the bones for a proper burial, Wirepa enters the resting grounds – only to be caught desecrating the remains by an inquisitive Hongi. Wirepa accuses Hongi of the misdeed, intending to use the slight as means to kick-start a new conflict between the tribes – and before long, a midnight attack sees the majority of Hongi’s people, and his father, brutally slaughtered at the hands of Wirepa and his crew.
Consumed by the need for vengeance, Hongi sets out into the Dead Lands – an area that is all but ignored by travellers due to rumours of a demonic, cannibalistic monster who claims it as his own. While Hongi goes there to find this mysterious killer and enlist his aid, Wirepa and his men remain vigilant as they cross the lands, hoping not to disturb the legendary brute.
Hongi does indeed find the cannibalistic warrior (played by Lawrence Makoare), and together they set off in pursuit of Wirepa and his men – forming an unlikely partnership that sees the monstrous warrior act as combat mentor to the inexperienced Hongi, whilst the younger, meeker man attempts to break the hardened shell of his unpredictable companion.
The Dead Lands is an incredibly striking film. There’s simply nothing else out there like it (save for, perhaps, Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto). Shot entirely in an ancient form of the Maori language and within the beautiful natural environs of New Zealand, it offers an astonishing sense of place and realism. Visual design, costuming, weaponry, and even the fight choreography feel completely authentic – much snarling, wide-eyed tongue waggling and brutal blows to the head are the order of the day here.
It’s also a continuously engaging adventure, flying along with snappy pacing and a continuous sense of being taken somewhere new. The film’s engrossing nature does loosen its grip, though, alongside the pacing, when Hongi and the Warrior come across a woman (Turei) and her two male compatriots in the forest. It’s at this softer point that reflection on what The Dead Lands has offered so far, in terms of narrative outside of the remarkable presentation, reveals a rather flat nature to the adventure – part chase movie, part coming-of-age-through-vengeance mixed in with a survival/action flick. In terms of storytelling there’s little outside the box of the genre to be had so far.
But then it happens.
In one of the most surprisingly affecting monologues to be found in a film of this ilk, Lawrence Makoare pulls out all the stops in an emotional appeal to everything that makes his character what he is, and the tragic weight immediately adds a whole new dimension to the film – taking his Warrior from muscled sidekick to front and centre focus. Makoare is riveting and the character so internally conflicted and cursed by circumstance that the audience is always holding out hope that he will, by the end, be able to once again recognise the good in himself.
The rest of the cast do a bang-up job their roles, especially Te Kohe Tuhaka as the thoroughly unlikeable, warmongering Wirepa – a man determined to make his name through a legacy of brutality and bloodshed. Speaking of which, Fraser’s direction is tight and focused, with a good number of mano-a-mano fight scenes offering plenty of hard-hitting action and jetting arterial spray to the film – even if the editing occasionally gets a little too swift for its own good.
The Dead Lands is an exciting, unique experience with much more to offer than the basic hook of its setting and language, and it is more than worth seeing for Makoare’s astounding performance alone.
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Film
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