FILM REVIEW; For a Family, the War at Home (Published 1995) (2024)

The tough, muscular characters in Lee Tamahori's ferocious "Once Were Warriors" are primed for fighting. And they need no battlefield: their hostilities are played out in the bedroom, in front of the children or in crowded bars. In his visceral first feature, Mr. Tamahori offers social realism with a savage kick, depicting Maori New Zealanders whose ties to their own history have been destroyed. Left floundering in an inhospitable urban world, they have lost touch with their tribal past to become part of a rootless global subculture. The misery seen here would be familiar anywhere.

Having said he hoped to make a film that would stand viewers' hair on end, Mr. Tamahori fully realizes that goal. "Once Were Warriors," a tale of vicious brawls within the family of Beth Heke (Rena Owen) and her belligerent husband, Jake (Temuera Morrison), is a brutally effective family drama. Rough around the edges and crudely obvious at times, it still presents a raw, disturbing story of domestic strife. Only when he tries to look on the bright side does Mr. Tamahori sound false notes.

Both this film's stars are frighteningly credible, in part because they both look like pure sinew and brawn. Beth has long tied herself to a violently abusive husband, but "Once Were Warriors" makes it clear that she is not simply a victim. Ms. Owen, a fiery actress with the sad, sensual look of a hard-knocks Jeanne Moreau, radiates a physical vitality that makes sense of this union. Against her better judgment, Beth falls for Jake's swagger even while she recoils from his bullying cruelty.

Jake sports the tattoos, black leather and heavy musculature that make most of the film's characters resemble members of a biker gang. There's something poignant about their need to dress interchangeably and look fierce in this way. The film's male characters are drawn together in boozy solidarity, grasping for the collective identity that vanished with their Maori tribal life. When Jake brings home his drunken buddies for middle-of-the-night parties in the Heke household, the revelers sing together as if they were gathered around a campfire, wishing for a fellowship that no longer exists in their everyday lives.

Behavior within this group is ritualized and sharply divided along male and female lines. While the men brawl heartily and glower at their women, the women are meant to stand by admiringly and gossip about the men's sexual prowess. When we first see her, Beth still accepts these ground rules, however grudgingly. "You're a hard lady," Jake tells her, delivering what sounds like the highest compliment of which he's capable.

"You're a hard man, Jakey," she replies.

"Once Were Warriors" begins with the sharp contrast of an idyllic New Zealand landscape -- which turns out to be a billboard -- and the gray, crumbling reality of the film's actual setting. It is no less startling in first showing how violently Jake's mean streak contrasts with his physical appeal. As a late-night party disintegrates, Jake hauls off and punches Beth's face, beating her so badly that she doesn't dare attend a court hearing the next morning. One of the Hekes' five children winds up in a state institution after that. All of them know the kind of battering their mother has regularly endured.