Maori Filmmaker Taika Waititi Revisits Hometown in ‘Boy’

Filmmaker Taika Waititi grew up in a rural Maori community of New Zealand in the 80s.

He decided to go back to his hometown of Waihau Bay to film a story he wrote.

His film “Boy” is about the relationship of an 11-year-old boy and his estranged father, who returns home after spending years in prison.

Anchor Marco Werman talks to Waititi about his hometown and hiring local people as actors and extras for the film.

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Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. The highest grossing New Zealand film ever was released in the U.S. this month. It’s called “Boy” and it takes place a Maori village in rural New Zealand. In the movie, Director Taika Waititi, revisits his childhood community of Waihau Bay. The year is 1984 and the story focuses on the relationship between an 11 year old boy who goes by the name “Boy,” and his estranged father who returns home after getting out of prison. Waititi hired children from his village for the film, putting a lot of trust in James Rolleston, in the title role of Boy. Rolleston lights up the screen in every scene. Here’s Boy, early in the film, talking to his pet goat/confidant named “Leaf.”

[Movie Excerpt]

The movie is shot entirely in Waihau Bay, a place film maker, Taika Waititi, says is still a lot like it was when he was a kid there.

Taika Waititi: It’s a very tiny little country town on the east coast of the north island of New Zealand which is another country on earth. I mean there’s probably about 300 people, the population of this town, and I’m probably related to all of them, so it’s quite hard to find love or legal love anyway, and I grew up there in the ’80s and you know, it was a pretty special childhood. The ’80s was a great time because I think adults gave kids a lot more trust and you know, they really kind of believed that their kids would be able to look after themselves without killing each other, and you know, it’s different now, kids will kill each other, so I feel that I was quite lucky to grow up in that time and it was a very innocent time and especially in New Zealand. I feel like the ’80s for us was sort of like our coming of age era, trying to find our identity, so I grew up in this tiny town. There was one store, one pub, and the school that I went to in 1984, the enrollment at the school was 30 kids, and when we shot this film there two years ago, it was 28.

Werman: I mean visually it’s kind of striking because you’ve got these cornfields right next to this beautiful Pacific Ocean.

Waititi: Yeah, it’s kind of an unreal landscape.

Werman: Yeah, it is. It’s an incredible place to grow up and a very beautiful place to shoot a film. So the film is set in 1984 and the story revolves around an 11 year old boy who is referred to as “Boy.” His mother died when she had her second child, Boy’s younger brother, and in the beginning of the film, the father is also not in the picture, but then he shows up. He’s been in jail, he’s been released and Taika, you’re not just a film maker, you also played the role of the father, so here’s that scene where you and Boy meet.

[Movie Excerpt]

Waititi: I’ve got to say I’m amazing.

Werman: It’s painful to watch Boy and his dad try and get acquainted again.

Waititi: Yes, yes.

Werman: He wants so much and his dad doesn’t even know how to behave.

Waititi: Oh yeah, no, this is a typical relationship where the kid parents the parent.

Werman: And despite the separation, there’s also some common ground for them. Boy is obsessed with Michael Jackson, for example, so is the dad, so the boy see’s his dad as a hero who can dance as well as Michael Jackson and the dad also sees himself as a kind of Samurai hero. Were these obsessions of your’s when you were growing up in the ‘80′s?

Waititi: Definitely Michael Jackson and all the pop references were obsessions of mine. I think we were all very obsessed with native Americans. You know, we all kind of loved the idea of what it was to be fighting against cowboys.

Werman: And were native Americans kind of role models for the Maori?

Waititi: To some degree, there was a point, I think the ’50s and ’60s, where because for a Maori, you were punished if you spoke your language at school and you were kind of brought up to be ashamed of being a Maori and so I think as a result, they tried to identify with other cultures and tried to latch onto other romantic cultures as well, and so the father character, he’s obsessed with like Samurai’s and it’s all about fantasy. It’s all about how you remove yourself from who you are right now and try and replace yourself with something else, and so there’s like three characters, the boy, his younger brother, Rocky, and the father, Alamein, and they all are engaged in this world of fantasy.

Werman: And really the movie is about these three people, a family getting to know each other.

Waititi: Yeah, getting to know each other, revolving around the replacement of this one very important person who died and how it’s affected them all.

Werman: Their mother?

Waititi: Yeah, and how they deal with the little pieces of guilt.

Werman: You used a lot of local Maori people in the film as we said. Tell us about the experience shooting there in Waihau Bay. Did you find yourself negotiating with the community over what you wanted to do with the movie and their, perhaps, demands and limitations that may be tradition imposed?

Waititi: Actually, it was all fine really. They were so supportive and that’s the first film that’s ever been shot there, and I mean they’ve seen cameras and everything, like technology and T.V. and lights and everything. Some people I think have an idea of what Maori culture is like and what rural New Zealand is like, and to some Americans, it’s almost like tribes and Papua in New Guinea or something like that. I did an interview once and the guy said, ‘so what was it like taking the cameras to your village and the elders seeing those cameras for the first time, you know, those soul capturing contraptions, how did they feel about that,’ and we’ve had T.V. there for the last 30 years, but yeah, so it’s interesting that just finding out what people’s idea of preconceptions of what Maori life is like in New Zealand, yeah. I think they really believe that we’re kind of living like 200 years ago.

Werman: You know, it struck me that we hear so little about New Zealand cinema, but one of the other best films that I’ve seen is Niki Caro’s 2002 movie, “Whale Rider.” Your film, “Boy” is a gem, not to mention New Zealand’s highest grossing film. New Zealand just feels like it’s quietly producing popular masterpieces. What’s going on there?

Waititi: We don’t make many films though. You know, we only make like six or seven films a year and you probably hear about one every three years so [inaudible].

Werman: That really wasn’t a bad hit rate.

Waititi: It’s pretty good, yeah, yeah. I mean interestingly, most of the films that do travel, Maori stories, I just think they’re more interesting, and this film did incredibly well back home and I think it really proves that people want to see themselves on screen. You know, they want to see their own stories being told and New Zealand cinema in general is known to be quite dark. You know, we’re sort of like the island of the South Pacific. We’re very isolated, it’s very hard to escape, so generally what we’re known for is films like, “Once We Were Warriors,” which is basically people just getting drunk and killing each other, and then things like, “Whale Rider” which is another way of looking at Maori culture, the more spiritual, and that kind of film really solidifies people’s idea that we just spend all our time riding animals and talking to ghosts…

Werman: Consulting the elders.

Waititi: Yeah, exactly, what do the elders think, and then you have, “Boy” which again is trying to change the angles.

Werman: You live in Los Angeles with about a month a year in New Zealand. How hard was it in making “Boy,” to tap into the authenticity of Waihau Bay? Seems like it would be…

Waititi: Well, I’m from there, so it was pretty easy to just, you know, I wrote the whole thing, making it like having a fictional narrative, but then painting it against a very real backdrop, putting this sort of weird disconnected family story against that, and I felt a duty anyway to make it authentic, because everyone from there is going to know if I’m like putting stuff in that wasn’t, you know…

Werman: Right.

Waititi: …wasn’t happening then, like, so everyone could recognize the fierce microwave in the neighborhood and things like that or like the fact that we all started our cows with like teaspoons and things.

Werman: Taika Waititi, great to meet you. Thanks for coming in.

Waititi: Thank you for having me.

Werman: By the way, check out our video of Taika Waititi explaining why he thinks New Zealand is the Iceland of the South Pacific. That’s at theworld.org. This is PRI.

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