Hopefully this time...

it was interesting that most of the (male?) comments about River Queen seemed to be more about the presence of Samantha Morton in it (as above), rather than the film itself, which very much divided people and reviewers in NZ (where I originally saw it on holiday before it came to the Sydney Film Fest) between 2 star reviews (like me) and 4 or 5 artistic genius reviews. Rain of the Children (seen in Sydney last night at world premiere) has a similar very interesting premise from Maori history so I had high hopes of it. The trouble is that although Vincent's films (well these two anyway) have very "worthy" themes and in many ways deserve to be made, they are just not very watchable. River Queen had some sort of Hollywood-style battle action Maori v Redcoats but ended up in my view as just a Maori Apocalypse Now - except up the Wanganui River. Rain of the Children is a necessarily more complex piece, due to the weaving in of scenes and info. from his 30yrs old movie including Puhi, from when he lived with her and her son on and off for a couple of years, into the recreation of the historic Rua story etc. And there is a lot of important information in there about why Puhi was like she was with the perceived curse on her. But it is simply not engaging at all (for me anyway, obviously) and it is totally uncommercial in the conventional cinema sense in terms of its audience. Just as well Maori TV and the Tuhoe stumped up the money for it cos at the box office it will sink like a stone - like I think River Queen did. Its just not very watchable. Unfortunately the use of Vincent's 30 year old first movie material and also his voiceovers/to camera give it the impression of a sort of vanity piece, but in a strange way. I just don't think it worked in the scheme of things. Vincent is obviously very committed to the Maori cause generally, and I respect that, but I just don't think most people will "enjoy" this film at all. Useful piece for education and historical discussion maybe in schools etc but its value otherwise I would consider limited.