Review: New Zealand film Kōkā looks 'several million bucks'

It’s been a good year for New Zealand films with a Māori/Pasifika angle – the all-conquering Tinā, the documentary about Marlon Williams’ first album in te reo, last year’s Land Wars drama Ka Whawhai Tonu.

And now another film, like Tinā, about a wise, old, indigenous woman. Her name is Hamo, and the film is called Kōkā.

The film is half in English, half in te reo – more specifically the Eastern dialect, I believe. Curiously both Kōkā and Tinā both mean mother.

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We meet Hamo in hospital, about to be sent home. And by “home” she means a long journey from the South Island to the East Cape.

Along the way she crosses paths with her polar opposite – an angry young woman called Jo, long separated from her Māori roots, a series of accidents waiting to happen.

There’s trouble at the caravan park she stays at, and the police are summoned.

Hamo wants to help, even though the police advise her to have nothing to do with Jo. She’s an incorrigible delinquent, they say.

But Hamo isn’t prepared to give up on her. She speaks up for her in court, and shortly afterwards finds she’s become her somewhat reluctant guardian. It looks like they’re both heading to the East Cape.

Now I have to say there were parts of the storyline – particularly the geography of the story – that I only got anything like a handle on near the end of the film.

I thought it had opened around Otaki, though I should have recognised the Southern Alps, I suppose.

I could have used some sort of road map throughout Kōka. Too many journeys seemed to go for miles in one direction only to end up where we started.

Similarly, the backstory of Hamo was hinted at in frustratingly short snippets of flashbacks and dreams.

The story’s best moments, predictably, are between the two leads. Hamo is played by Hinetu Dell, who I remember from the short-film collection Vai a few years ago. She’s old, wise, and connected with the old ways.

The volatile Jo is played by newcomer Darneen Christian.

But the film decides that generation-gap bickering may not be enough. So, a lot of time – and flashbacks – are spent suggesting the characters’ pasts will produce something more.

Hamo obviously had issues with her late father. Her relationship with her late husband is also touched on. Was he a goody or a baddy?

Meanwhile Jo seems to have no back-story to speak of. Her friends from the caravan site pop up throughout the film, adding to my geographical confusion.

Particularly when Hamo once again finds herself in a very similar hospital later in the film to where she started out.

Was it all a dream? A flashback, or a flash forward? This way lies madness, of course, and it’s probably best to do what I did, and take it all on face value.

One thing can’t be denied though. The film looks several million bucks. Director Kath Akuhata-Brown said that the film benefited indirectly from the recent writers and actors strikes in America. With several overseas film productions on hold here, their crack crews were suddenly available, and keen to throw their expertise at Kōka.

It looks and sounds stupendous – even if the night skies do occasionally look more Star Wars/Dune than Aotearoa/Matariki.