During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori household in South Auckland: the actor is the drinking, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and energy. He crafted a bold, sincere picture with a very 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of his American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable film which sidestepped typical double cliches. And in later years, he returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
