CINEMA: River Queen

Director Vincent Ward’s fascinating if flawed look at 1860s New Zealand will take you into a world you have never seen before; a strange world of Western and Maori cultures, meeting and clashing in a beautiful yet unforgiving landscape.

Young Irish woman Sarah (Samantha Morton) crosses a line when she falls for a Maori boy and bears him a son who is subsequently kidnapped by his Maori grandfather. Desperate to get her boy back Sarah must travel along a great and mysterious river searching for him, her only friend within this hostile and untamed territory being a soldier (Kiefer Sutherland) who has lost his spiritual way. But when she does finally discover her lost son, Sarah realises she must make a choice: align herself with the colonials from whom she is descended by blood, or leave her old way of life behind her and forge new loyalties and relationships with the Maoris.

This is one historical story that has not been done to death by cinema, in fact, the Maori/colonial wars are probably unknown to many British people and yet Vincent Ward brings them to startling life. He cleverly draws the audience’s interest by adding a human element to proceedings – we care about Sarah and we care about her son and so therefore really want to see them survive and thrive. Yet the real star here is the lush, alien vegetation and dark riverbanks of New Zealand, a setting for savage, almost primordial occurrences.

Although the film is too long and its impetus dips in the middle, there is much to admire, although it is doubtful many people will go to see this rather curious oddity. Dee Pilgrim