Liam Maguren has combed through the extensive free-to-stream movie selection on Whakaata Māori’s streaming service Māori+ and pulled out some of the best to watch. We’ll update this post each month as films come and go.
Ali & Ava
WATCH ON MĀORI+Adeel Akhtar (Enola Holmes) and Claire Rushbrook (Ammonite) deliver potent performances as the titular characters in this grounded British romance, nominated for Best Film at the British Independent Film Awards. A child becomes the conduit for Ali and Ava to connect—he’s drawn to her warmth and kindness, she’s drawn to his sense of humour and humanity. Unlike the more sanitised, puke-worthy love stories pumped out of Hollywood, director Clio Barnard (The Selfish Giant) understands the complexities in the everyday lives of everyday people, and through Ali and Ava, she shows how those struggles can both harm and balm matters of the heart.
C’mon C’mon
WATCH ON MĀORI+In between his two grimly psychotic turns as The Joker for Todd Phillips’ films, Joaquin Phoenix pulled out a performance full of warmth and grace in Mike Mills’ lovely drama as radio journalist Johnny who helps his sister out by taking her son (Woody Norman in a BAFTA-nominated performance) with him across the country. The boy’s father is in a tough spot, and the emotionally stunted Johnny doesn’t seem like the most qualified man to explain the situation, but as they venture around interviewing kids for Johnny’s podcast, the film slyly shows how much adults can learn from their much younger peers.
Cousins
WATCH ON MĀORI+Waru directors Briar Grace-Smith and Ainsley Gardiner adapt Patricia Grace’s beloved novel about three cousins, separated by circumstance and driven further apart by time, and their journey to reunite. In his review, Flicks editor Steve Newall praised the film: “Anchored by superb performances, and with the impacts of systemic dislocation and colonisation on Māori evident throughout, Cousins is a deeply moving dramatic triumph, one that stayed with me for some time after the cinema lights came back on.”
Donnie Darko
WATCH ON MĀORI+The film that put Jake Gyllenhaal on the map—and disgusting rabbit costumes in fashion during Halloween—this psychological thriller broke minds back in 2001. Gyllenhaal plays a teenage loner plagued by strange visions that may or may not touch on the supernatural.
Free from the internet’s unstoppable ability to spoil things within a week of release, Donnie Darko became the kind of engrossing oddity that drove audiences to talk about it feverously, ascending it to cult status. It made for a remarkable feature debut from Richard Kelly who, sadly, could not keep that quality going, following up with double-duds Southland Tales and The Box—which is letter B in the A-Z of Trash.
The Duke
WATCH ON MĀORI+Britain’s national treasure Jim Broadbent stars in this comedic tale of elderly revolt. Based on a real theft in the early ‘60s, Broadbent plays taxi driver Kempton Bunton who takes it upon himself to swipe a portrait from London’s National Gallery for a simple ransom—free government-funded telly for the elderly. With the director of Notting Hill calling the shots, and the living work-of-art that is Helen Mirren playing Bunton’s wife, this is a top-shelf crowd-pleaser to watch with the folks.
The Eight Hundred
WATCH ON MĀORI+Director Hu Guan’s war epic depicts the Defense of Sihang Warehouse during the Second Sino-Japanese War where 400 soldiers held out for four days against numerous waves of Japanese forces. Dominating Chinese cinemas with a $116 million (USD) opening weekend, the film went on to become the highest-grossing movie of 2020 worldwide.
Escape from Mogadishu
WATCH ON MĀORI+Based on real events in 1991, this meaty civil war thriller sees embassies from North and South Korea forming an uneasy temporary alliance when Somalia’s capital city suddenly breaks out into warfare. With most forms of communication cut off, they have no choice but to put their own political tensions to one side and find a way out.
While the film doesn’t skimp on the detailed diplomatic drama that sets up the scenario, it’s the Hollywood-level might of the production that impresses the most, culminating in one hell of a car chase climax.
The Father
WATCH ON MĀORI+The great Anthony Hopkins claimed another Oscar for his stirring performance in this inventive, haunting film as an elderly man whose refusal for assistance has him questioning the intentions of those closest to him, including his daughter played by the brilliant Olivia Colman.
Filmmaker Florian Zeller essentially upsizes his own stage play, which he’s adapting, through careful editing choices and crafty use of space to cinematically put the audience in the lead character’s position. These choices aren’t immediately evident, but as this hugely affecting film continues, the more Zeller’s techniques grip you, binding the audience to a frightening interpretation of fractured reality that doubles as a beg for empathy towards those in similar states of mind.
The Good Boss
WATCH ON MĀORI+Javier Bardem stars in this Spanish satire on capitalism as Julio Blanco, “a magnanimous and manipulative businessman oozing with corporate snake oil.” That’s what Rachel Ashby wrote in her review of the film, which follows the titular boss as he attempts to swat away all his workers’ qualms before a visit from an entity that could give the company an award for excellence.
Ashby continues: “There’s much to enjoy about this slick satire, not least the way the minor characters reveal their own banal evils and aspirations—but it’s Bardem’s performance that is the linchpin of the piece. Blanco is the latest in Bardem’s catalogue of bad guys so convincing, you almost forget who you should be rooting for.”
Identifying Features
WATCH ON MĀORI+In this quietly unnerving Mexican mystery, a mother takes it upon herself to find her missing son—who she hasn’t heard from since he attempted to cross the border. She crosses paths with a different young man, who’s just been deported from the US and might provide the answers she’s desperately looking for. A gorgeously shot, brooding piece of work, this is one tour through a militia-ridden landscape that sticks in the mind long after its impactful conclusion.
The Last Wave
WATCH ON MĀORI+This certified 1977 Australian classic stars three-time Golden Globe winner Richard Chamberlain as a young Sydney-based lawyer who must defend a group of Indigenous men accused of killing another Indigenous man. The case sends him on a journey through Aboriginal history and his own nightmarish visions, with fellow screen legend David Gulpilil playing spiritual guide to the attorney.
Writing for The Guardian, Luke Buckmaster says the film “has an unsettling surreal energy that seems to exist entirely in that moment, where something as ordinary as the weather becomes an instrument of terror and suspense. The title isn’t a reference to a movement or an era; it is something far more literal. The manner with which water seeps into the film – from storms to dreams to a finale almost end-of-the-world in its scale – creates its key recurring motif.”
Lucky Grandma
WATCH ON MĀORI+Screen veteran Tsai Chin (Memoirs of a Geisha, Casino Royale) plays a chain-smoking grandma in this stylish black comedy. Set in New York City’s Chinatown, the recently widowed gran explores her new independence by seeing a fortune teller. Hyped by the news she receives, Grandma hits the casino—a road that somehow leads her to attracting local gangsters, hiring a bodyguard, and attempting to avoid a gang war. If you need a punchy, unique chuckle buster clocking in just shy of 90 minutes, this is it.
Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen
WATCH ON MĀORI+The life and legacy of Māori filmmaking legend Merata Mita is laid out and explored by her son Heperi in this illuminating documentary portrait. A giant in Aotearoa’s cinema history, Mita made her presence known on-screen in films like Utu and wielded the camera to create landmark documentaries Bastion Point: Day 507 and Patu! (the latter of which is also available on Māori+) as well as becoming the first wahine Māori to direct a feature film with 1988’s Mauri.
The doco covers these films extensively, how they tie back to Mita’s drive in highlighting Māori rights violations, and how her drive went beyond New Zealand to affect filmmakers across the globe.
The Mole Agent
WATCH ON MĀORI+A nominee for Best Documentary Feature at the 2021 Academy Awards, this Chilean film follows an 83-year-old man hired by a private investigator to covertly enter a retirement home and look for any signs of elderly abuse. What he finds might not be as sinister, but it warrants attention.
When I reviewed the film, I commented on how it “looked more like a fluffy mid-afternoon delight than a pressing observation on real-life matters. Amazingly, it’s both… With a retirement home full of vivid characters, some incredibly clean cinematography, and an impeccably tidy narrative, you’d be forgiven for thinking The Mole Agent wasn’t a documentary at all.”
Official Competition
WATCH ON MĀORI+Even the world of high-art filmmaking needs a good noogie every now and then. This Spanish three-hander black comedy delivers the chuckles by placing Penélope Cruz in the role of a hot-shot director hired by a millionaire with a void in his life to create… ART. In her possession are two actors—a blockbuster star looking to be taken seriously (Antonio Banderas) and a longtime thespian who cannot stomach the mainstream (Oscar Martínez)—who cannot get over each other or themselves and must be whipped into shape… one way or another.
Powered by its three excellent lead comic performances, Official Competition is a gleeful kick-in-the-knees to ego-inflated artists that includes some stonkingly good cinematography and one particularly disgusting use of ADR.
Pig
WATCH ON MĀORI+Nicholas Cage takes all his trademark, meme-able silliness and throws it in the bin for this brooding thriller, playing former chef Robin Feld who is forced out of his comfortable cabin in the woods and back into the city’s underground culinary world to find his kidnapped truffle pig.
The film ranks near the top of the official Flicks Cage Gauge, with Luke Buckmaster writing: “Both Cage’s brilliantly somber performance and this moody, moving film hit a high water mark during a thematic centerpiece scene in a fancy restaurant. A bloodied Feld, looking very out of place, calls for the chef then serves him a piercing Baudrillardian rant. ‘None of it is real,’ he grumbles. ‘The critics aren’t real. The customers aren’t real. You aren’t real.’ Never before have you seen a foodie who talks, moves, thinks like this. Cage is mystically, magically, sublimely good.”
The Quiet Girl
WATCH ON MĀORI+A shy nine-year-old girl is sent away from her troubled home and temporarily in the care of two distant relatives for the summer in this Berlin award-winning Irish feature—also notable for being the first film in the native Irish language to be nominated for Best International Feature at the Academy Awards.
This is serene cinema at its finest, guided by an unhurried pace that allows gentle observations of people and the world through the eyes of a child. It’s as if you can see joyful childhood memories being born in real-time, contrasted by the titular girl’s growing understanding of the problems back home. If it feels like the movie’s not adding up to much, the incredibly moving ending will prove otherwise.
Quo Vadis, Aida?
WATCH ON MĀORI+Nominated for Best International Feature at the 2021 Academy Awards, this incredibly challenging and masterfully tuned siege film relays the true story of a United Nations translator’s mad rush during the Bosnian genocide to get her husband and sons to safety from the invading Serbian army. They are but a few of the hundreds of people holding up in a supposed safe zone, desperately waiting for the UN to make a move.
One of the rare titles to be certified fresh at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s an experience that simply cannot be forgotten. The filmmakers constantly flood the frame with people, an ever-present reminder of the weight of genocide pressing down on our central characters, while Jasna Đuričić matches that power with an incredibly composed performance that blends desperation with determination.
Rosie
WATCH ON MĀORI+When their landlord sells the house they’re living in, a woman must put her family through homelessness while they find another place to rent in this acclaimed Irish drama. It may sound like a simple task to anyone living in a place not plagued by a housing crisis, but in Dublin City, even finding brief accommodation at a hotel isn’t guaranteed.
A film that could easily be mistaken for another Ken Loach classic, director Paddy Breathnach’s tight and powerful piece of socio-realism keeps a laser focus on the titular mother’s desperate situation, choosing only to follow her across a 24-hour period, with the film leaning on Sarah Greene’s colossal performance.
Woman at War
WATCH ON MĀORI+A middle-aged woman takes on the destructive aluminum industry single-handedly in this offbeat Icelandic film. Armed with a bow-n-arrow and a backing band inside her head, this lone wolf starts to gain ground in her mission, only for a twist of fate to challenge what she truly wants in life.
A crowd-pleaser at film festivals all around the world, filmmaker Benedikt Erlingsson plays all the right beats of a great underdog-vs-The-Man thriller while applying just enough quirk to give the film an identity of its own. Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir also makes for a compelling lead, playing what could be one of 2018’s greatest superhero characters who’s suddenly thrown heavy questions of identity made painfully relatable in the time of the climate crisis.
