I enjoyed Barry Barclay’s film Te Rua. It was a very interesting movie. I loved the way it was told as well as the messages it conveyed. The views were also amazing. I was not really acquainted with Maori culture and the issues concerned with it until this film. The issue of having museums return artifact to the original owner is not a new topic, yet it was done with an interesting twist. I loved how the Maori demonstrators took hold of the Berlin statues and held them hostage. It was an interesting perspective to flip the situation on westerns who were not used to being taken advantage of or being “othered.”
One line that really stuck out to me in the movie was how the museum needed their artifacts, their “congos” their “africas”, otherwise they were nothing, they were left this emptiness. It’s as though museums/western civilization needed an other to use as a reference to define themselves even more. They are essentially nothing without other cultures and artifacts.
Also in class we talked about the part in the movie where the Maori girl yelled a the news reporter, and told him that they would let them know the news when it was “our news.” I thought it was interesting because it was a show of power. A similar part was when the older white woman was talking to the younger one. The younger woman was upset that she was not invited to be a part of demonstration. The older woman consoled her by telling her that it is not their fight to fight. In both these scenarios there is the split where the Maori want to define themselves and fight their own fights their way. It showed the Maori taking hold of their situation rather than use the “people” who put them in that situation for help. They are taking their situation and in making it their own and solving it on their terms taking back the power that they initially been stripped of. It’s a powerful and influential move.