The New Zealand director Lee Tamahori returns to his roots with The Convert, a confused historical thriller. Tamahori got international attention with Once Were Warriors, a film about modern domestic violence in a contemporary Maori village, then Hollywood came calling and he even directed a James Bond movie. Now the director is back in New Zealand with another film about the Maori, except this time our entry point is a cliché of a white savior, a warrior poet with enlightened ideas and an unwavering moral compass. The sort of character is exactly why the likes of Dances with Wolves have not aged well, and yet Tamahori doggedly follows him, as if he worried the Maori characters are not compelling enough on their own. Between this the movie almost entirely shifting its conflict halfway through, there is a persistent sense that The Convert is apprehensive, almost timid, to a fault.
Part of what makes the film so frustrating is that, despite its muddled point of view, Tamahori and his cinematographer Gin Loane film the striking New Zealand countryside with detail and care. The film is set in 1830, around the same time as Jane Campion’s The Piano, and both share an affinity for craggy coastlines and thick, foreboding forests. Our entry point is Thomas Munro (Guy Pearce), a preacher who goes to the coastal European settler community of Epworth to work at their new church. Before Munro can even get to the village, he encounters a fearsome Maori leader who slaughters the husband of Rangimai (Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne), a young woman he meets by chance. Munro decides the woman will be his ward in Epworth, as she was cast out of her community, and his attempt to treat her like an equal rubs the citizens of Epworth the wrong way.
You might think the story involves Munro and Rangimai fighting against Epworth, taking a stand for human dignity and the inherent racism of the British Empire at its most ubiquitous. There is part of that to the film, at least until the halfway point, and then Munro decides to leave Epworth entirely. We see almost none of his fellow Englishmen again, and instead the rest of the film follows a skirmish between two warring Maori villages. Munro once again tries to intervene, arguing for nonviolence, until he has no choice but to pick a side and go to battle. Tamahori films these battle scenes with excitement, a mix of muskets and blades against a striking backdrop, although the stakes are relatively tame because almost all these characters only get half a movie to develop their side. Even Avatar, another film with strong parallels to The Convert, understands that competent scriptwriting requires a balance of attention.
Despite some persistent frustration, there are moments in The Convert to admire. Pearce is still an effective actor, even if he is cast less frequently as a leading man nowadays, and there is a long monologue where Munro confesses his dark past, a time in the English army where he committed atrocities and cannot forgive himself. No matter how moving his delivery, the lopsided construction of the film invites a more cynical point of view: the only reason we have this scene from Munro is because, later in the film when he reveals himself to be effective in battle, we have a semi-plausible reason for the change. Tamahori also has an interest in Maori culture, particularly how their penchant for war darkened after the English introduced cannons and rifles into their conflict. And yet the resolution for the big battle, a scene where the leaders resolve their difference through deadly ritual, leaves more questions than answers.
The Convert has a strange epilogue years after the battle scene, where Munro returns to the English as an advisor to Maori people. He has tattoos on his face, and his manner utterly baffles the stuffy English soldiers who see a man that has “gone native.” What is this denouement trying to say? That the English are not enlightened, while the Maori way of life is far preferable to warrior poets like Munro? It is a nice thought, and yet the film’s drama and moral arc does not lay the groundwork for that conclusion. Maybe the screenwriters of The Convert, Tamahori and Shane Danielsen, would benefit from a longer adaptation of their source material – the novel Wulf by Hamish Clayton. No one in this film, not even Munro, gets the proper attention to become a unique, carefully delineated character. Waning interest is an inevitable consequence of lopsided screenwriting, so at least sometimes the film is a joy to behold.
Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures
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