Cinema
Rewi's Last Stand
Rudall Hayward · 1940
Synopsis
Waikato, 1864, during the British invasion. Ariana, a young Māori woman, loves a settler, Robert Beaumont, and a scene by the river brings them together before the war separates them. Around their story, the film recounts the siege of Ōrākau, where Rewi Maniapoto and some three hundred followers face more than two thousand imperial soldiers; Robert fights to protect Ariana.
Context
The director was here remaking his own silent film of 1925, prepared from 1937 and shot in 1938 and 1939, drawing on James Cowan's history of the country's wars. Ramai Te Miha plays Ariana, and the music is by Alfred Hill. The New Zealand version of 1940 ran for one hundred and twelve minutes; for the British quotas it was cut to sixty-three minutes and released in 1949 under the title The Last Stand, the only surviving version. In 2014, nitrate extracts deposited at the archive revealed twelve unknown shots.
Who it is for
Only the abridged sixty-three-minute version survives, in English; Ariana's two waiata were lost in the editing.
Prizes and reception
The first New Zealand feature film shown on the country's television, in 1970, it was long screened in schools.
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