Utu

New Zealand in the eighteen seventies. Te Wheke is a Maori soldier serving in the British army. One day he comes to his own village and finds it destroyed by soldiers. He takes off the uniform and begins a war against his own unit. The army is after him, and a farmer whose wife was killed builds his own weapon and hunts him. The narrative advances from several sides at once and who is in the right keeps changing. Geoff Murphy directs. Anzac Wallace plays Te Wheke. The word in the title means, in Maori, answering back and restoring a balance; revenge is not an exact equivalent, and the film takes that difference as its subject. The narrative rests on the New Zealand wars of the nineteenth century; the fighting over land between British settlers and Maori communities, and Maori serving on both sides, are historical fact. It belongs to the period when New Zealand cinema began to be seen internationally and was shown at Cannes. The form is close to a western: landscape, horses, guns and pursuit. But there is no hero and the film clears none of the sides. Several different cuts circulate; the director prepared his own version again years later. Who it is for: viewers who follow New Zealand cinema and films about colonial history. Who it is not for: the violence is direct, the narrative is episodic, and the sides are confusing without the historical context.