During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son gets tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could apply this energy and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of his American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the heir from attack or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped typical double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
