Feature NZ 2011 prod co O Le Tulafale Ltd, assisted by NZFC prod Catherine Fitzgerald dir/writer Tusi Tamasese DP Leon Narbey ed Simon Price production design Rob Astley costume design Kirsty Cameron sound Richard Flynn composer/sound design Tim Prebble cast Fa’afiaula Sagote, Tausili Pushparaj, Salamasina Mataia, Ioata Tanielu, Ga Sakaria, Tauili’ili Maiava, Lino Lemana 110 minutes

Reviewed by Helen Martin

Tusi Tamasese’s feature debut is a knockout, a real treat for the eye, the ear and the heart.

While not, as some claim, the first Samoan feature film, it is the first with Samoan dialogue. Importantly, it is also the first to eschew the theme of colonisation’s devastation. In Flying Fox in a Freedom Tree, for example, half-caste dwarf Tagata, alienated by his mixed ethnicity and physical difference, is joined in a destructive rampage by his friend Pepe, enraged by an enforced Western education.

While the central character in O Le Tulafale is also a dwarf, the story’s conflicts are rooted in traditional Samoan culture. The head of a family of outsiders, for whom the struggle of subsistence living is ever present, Saili is daily humiliated by his fellow villagers, needing the title of chief to save the family land, but too timid to claim it. His beautiful but fragile wife Vaaiga, banished pregnant from her village 17 years earlier, urges him to show courage, while fending off violent demands from her estranged brother and trying to keep her daughter away from an unsuitable lover. Then things get really tough.

While this is a classic allegory, what distinguishes the film is its beautiful execution. Its authenticity gives it an almost documentary feel. The actors are predominantly untrained, yet the performances are absolutely convincing. Fa’afiaula Sagot, for example, a carpenter with no acting experience, offers us a Saili equal to any historical David confronting his Goliath.

The pace is measured, contemplative. The subtlety in the shooting, editing and performance styles feels European, allowing for the story to be told as much in silence as in dialogue and action. Rather than “European” it may be better to describe the style as “not Hollywood” and to borrow Barry Barclay’s phrase “talking in”, meaning that O Le Tulafale tells its story from deep inside the culture.

The use of the Samoan rather than the English tongue is crucial, but inviting the viewer in goes way beyond verbal communication. There are the potent visuals. The jewel-coloured landscape and its signs of human occupation are lush, vibrant and tactile. Diamond raindrops fall on taro leaves, framed by mist shrouded mountains. Paint peels off an old building in such sharp relief it seems to be in 3D… There is the beautifully judged soundtrack, with Samoan music and instruments evocative in enhancing mood and atmosphere. And there is the narrative itself, cleverly melding the passions of myth and tradition to create a wonderfully uncompromised whole.

It really is a knockout.