Lorraine Caffery
Becs Arahanga’s Hinekura is an empowering declaration: womanhood is something to be celebrated. The film is set in the pristine wilderness of 1600’s Aotearoa and follows Hine (Amy Kahumako Rāmeka), a young Māori girl who has just begun her menses. Hine, accompanied by the women of her village, embark on a journey through the jungle to undergo a sacred ritual. Hine starts this rite-of-passage as a girl, but at its conclusion, she will have stepped into her power, becoming both a woman and a warrior.
Hine begins this journey reluctantly. She is troubled by the blood running down her legs, hesitant to leave home. At one point, she even steals back to the river to play with her friend, Tama (Te Ohorere Reneti). Hine doesn’t want to grow up. Many girls don’t. Long gone are the days of innocent play: now you have breasts and hips and sex appeal and suddenly the world doesn’t seem as safe as it was. Fortunately, Hine doesn’t have to come-of-age alone. She is surrounded by women, young and old, sisters and mothers, ingenues and wise elders, who tenderly and lovingly coax her back to the truth: she is brave, divine, and sacred.
She is destined.
Amy Kahumako Rameka (L) and Kasina Campbell star in Becs Arahanga’s Hinekura.
Hine is not the only woman Arahanga empowers. When I watch Hinekura I feel destined, too. The film is an ode to me and all of womankind. Every detail, choice and sun-soaked frame is steeped in our divine femininity. The film refreshingly exists outside of today’s oppressive, patriarchal ideology. Instead, it honors what many Indigenous cultures have long practiced and what colonization almost destroyed: masculinity and femininity are a harmonious balance. The feminine is not servile, she is equal. The women of Hinekura exemplify this concept, as they are enabled and encouraged to operate independently from the men in their village.
At the film’s end, Hine finally assumes her staff to defend her sister, Rona (Aporonia Arahanga) against the strange and violent warrior, Tangata Wairangi (Jarod Rawiri). In doing so, she actualizes into the woman her menstruation symbolizes. When she returns to the village, it is joyous. There is singing and dancing. The sacred, day’s-long ritual is complete. Arahanga’s film is proudly Māori and told entirely in Māori, but its message is for everyone.