White Lies (2013 New Zealand film)

White Lies - Tuakiri Huna is a 2013 New Zealand film directed by Dana Rotberg and stars Whirimako Black, Antonia Prebble, and Rachel House.

Regarded as an excellent portrayal of colonial oppression in New Zealand, the film deals with the impacts of the Tohunga Suppression Act upon Māori traditions surrounding childbirth.

The unborn baby becomes the central figure in the story, as the women are forced to reconcile their differing perspectives and confront their own expectations of motherhood, life and death.

[9] As a young girl Paraiti (Te Ahurei Rakuraku), witnesses the brutal killing of her family by European settlers in a conflict that leaves a permanent scar on her cheek.

[10] Many years later, Paraiti (Whirimako Black), lives a semi-nomadic existence in the rural Te Urewera region of New Zealand, and is working underground as a medicine woman and healer.

[10] It is later revealed that Paraiti trains pregnant young women in birthing procedures and secretly uses a variety of herbs and plants to apply ancient healing methods to her patients.

[11] On a rare visit to town, Paraiti is approached by Maraea (Rachel House), the Māori housekeeper of a wealthy white woman named Rebecca Vickers (Antonia Prebble).

[10] The scene has been described as a harrowing turning point for Paraiti, as she is forced to retrieve the whenua (placenta) of the stillborn child from a rusted garbage can in order to return it to her land and people.

[10] The pivotal turning point occurs when it is revealed that Maraea is Rebecca's mother and has been bleaching her skin daily since childhood to ensure her survival in a white world.

[14] The screenwriter and director of the film, Dana Rotberg, has described the novella as "a perfect piece of storytelling", which "contained complexity, was generous in its understanding of human drama and had a delightful sense of humour.

I worked with these people for a number of years before the final script was brought to production.”[17]Rotberg has also spoken of a deep personal connection with Ihimaera's novella, and has stated that the story spoke to her in a way that transcended boundaries of race and culture.

My very own whakapapa.”[15]Embarking on the process of adaptation, Rotberg asked Ihimaera for "freedom and independence from him an author" to transform Medicine Woman into the final screenplay for White Lies - Tuakiri Huna.

"[23] The film centres upon Rebecca's pregnancy, which serves as a narrative tool to ensure that the three main characters confront their irreconcilable beliefs regarding motherhood, destiny and death.

[25] The relationship dynamic between the two characters departs significantly from Ihimaera's original novella, in which Rebecca gives birth and attempts to murder her child, and Maraea tries to stop her.

[25] Paraiti is left powerless as the matron in charge threatens to send her to jail for possession of medicinal herbs, leaving her to witness the unspeakable tragedy.

"[13] It has also been suggested that the practice serves to “merge the land… ancestresses and female goddesses, with mother and baby.”[13] The scene shows the matron in charge tossing the placenta onto a rubbish heap, forcing Paraiti to retrieve it from a rusted tin garbage can.

In being unable to save the whenua, Paraiti must confront the “undeniable reality that her world, the universe of her ancestors and the very possibility of continuity of her culture, is crumbling under the power of the imposition of a new and foreign law.”[24]

In particular, it has been suggested that Paraiti is conceived as an archetypal Mexican goddess, who serves “to fortify the primal connection of mother and child, and of people with their land.”[10] Rotberg based the title of the film off of a popular Mexican saying: ‘Verdades a medias: mentiras que matan’, which roughly translates to ‘Half-truths are lies that kill.’[4] Rotberg has stated that she believed the phrase ‘White Lies’ conveyed "precisely" the meaning of the saying in the historical context of colonisation.

Huna: To conceal or hide.”[4]The juxtaposition of these two languages in the film's dialogue becomes a clear and powerful expression of the clash between two different worlds and two foreign cosmologies.

"[4] According to Rotberg, the centrality of the te reo Māori language allowed "every word [to acquire] new and rich connotations... the translators... took the dialogue to a place way beyond the functional purpose of naming, describing and communicating.