Contested terrains of identity and home: Coming of age, belonging and Māori-Pākehā relations in Taika Waititi’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)

Abstract

Māori director Taika Waititi has garnered international acclaim for his films, from the early shorts Two Cars, One Night (2004) and Tama Tū - (2005) to his featurelength box office successes Boy (2010) and Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016). While he may now be better known to global audiences for recently directing the 2017 instalment of the Marvel Comics franchise Thor: Ragnarok, in a number of his fictional New Zealand films Waititi offers fresh and original perspectives on modern Māori identity and experience. In Boy and Hunt for the Wilderpeople he explores Māori identity in relation to the classic theme of coming of age. This article discusses Hunt for the Wilderpeople as a coming-of-age tale depicting a Māori boy’s journey through the contested terrains of identity and home. Loosely adapted from Barry Crump’s 1986 novel Wild Pork and Watercress, the film focuses on the unlikely relationship between a rebellious, 13-year-old Māori foster boy, Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison), and his reluctant foster parent, Hector ‘Hec’ Faulkner (Sam Neill), a bushman and ex-con, who together escape into the wilderness to evade confinement by child welfare authorities and capture by the police. Working in his trademark comedic and satirical style, Waititi contemporizes Crump’s original story by introducing new characters, unexpected plot developments and a rich array of satirical allusions to global media culture that significantly transform the novel’s celebration of male hunting rituals and iconic image of bicultural Aotearoa New Zealand. Instead, Waititi depicts ongoing tensions between Pākehā and Māori, while subverting and demythologizing clichéd notions of national and ethnic identity.