Attribution:Fernando de Sousa from Melbourne, Australia, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Born to be Wild: Film Review of Hunt for the Wilderpeople
By Geoff Carter
There are filmmakers whose creative stamp is so distinctive that their films are recognizable almost from the opening credits. Wes Anderson, Martin Scorsese, Tim Burton, and Quentin Tarantino fall into this category. Their distinctive visual styles, thematic content, and narrative techniques mark them as not only brilliant filmmakers, but as visionaries.
A few years ago, while at the movies, I saw a trailer for a comedy about a boy in the Nazi Youth whose hero—Adolf Hitler—was also his imaginary friend. I was appalled. Who would make a comedy about Hitler and the Nazis? And why? The film, of course, was JoJo Rabbit, and when I did see it, I was absolutely dumbfounded at its empathy, brilliance, and (in a major understatement) offbeat humor. I had never seen anything like it before—or since. Somehow, director and writer Taiki Waititi was able to create an eminently empathic, human, and optimistic film arising, like a phoenix, out of the horrors of Nazi Germany.
We happened to run across Hunt for the Wilderpeople, one of Waititi’s earlier films, on Netflix last night. Like JoJo Rabbit, the film is about a youngster struggling to find his place in the world that doesn’t want him.
The film opens with a series of beautiful aerial shots of the New Zealand wilderness, eventually focusing on a car which pulls up to a small, somewhat dilapidated farm. Foster child and juvenile offender Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison) is being dropped off at his new foster home by the cynical and somewhat malignant child welfare worker Paula Hall (Rachel House).
Thirteen-year-old Ricky, a city kid, is understandably skeptical about living in the bush. Even after Bella (Rima Te Wiata), matron of the farm, enthusiastically welcomes him into her home, Ricky resists, deciding to run away that night. He is awakened the next morning by Bella, who informs he escaped a total of two hundred meters away from the farm. He accepts her invitation to breakfast. Later, in a touching and hilarious scene, Bella sings Ricky a birthday song and then gives him a dog, which he promptly names Tupac.
Ricky and Bella grow close eventually, although Ricky is surprised and sometimes shocked at the ways of the bush—particularly when Bella enthusiastically kills a wild boar with nothing but a knife. Although Bella and Ricky forge a bond, Bella’s husband Hector (Sam Neill) wants nothing to do with the boy. He seems to be a grumpy old man, a complete misanthrope who wants only to be left alone.
After Bella unexpectedly passes away, Child Welfare sends a letter saying that Ricky will be pulled from the farm and assigned to a new foster home. Hector says Ricky must go, but Ricky decides to take to the bush and fakes his own death, burning down Hector’s barn in the process.
Not surprisingly, Ricky is overwhelmed by life in the wild. He cannot find food and soon becomes completely lost. Hector finds him and tells Ricky he must go with Ms. Hall, the malignant welfare worker. Ricky refuses, and during a scuffle, Hector injures his ankle, making him immobile. Forced to stay in the bush for six weeks, Ricky learns survival skills while he and Hector start forging a friendship.
Eventually, after Hector heals, they make their way to a hunting hut where they discover a giant manhunt for them is underway because the authorities believe Hector has kidnapped Ricky. A trio of hunters enters the hut and in a hilarious misunderstanding as Ricky explains—aa only a thirteen-year-old can—what happened to them, come to believe that Hector is sexually abusing Ricky. They try to capture the two, but Ricky fends them off with a rifle, sparking a “gangster” mentality in him.
The two run back to the bush and are able to evade the authorities for months. While visiting another hunting hut, they run across a ranger in a coma. Hector sends Ricky for help. He accidentally meets Kahu (Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne), a young girl with whom he becomes smitten. She takes him home where they call for help. Kahu’s father comes in, and recognizing Ricky, is less concerned with notifying Child Welfare than he is with taking a series of selfies with the young man. Ricky is somewhat bewildered that he is unequivocally accepted by the family.
When Ricky returns to Hector, he finds the hut surrounded by police and immediately sets off to find his friend. Because the two of them saved the ranger’s life, Hector is now regarded as something of a hero. After a strenuous journey during which Ricky encounters Paula and refuses her bribe, he finds Hector and they continue running.
During this time, they are attacked by a wild boar which gravely injures Hector’s dog, Zag. After he puts Zag down, Ricky reveals that he has brought Bella’s ashes with the intention of spreading them at a lake she spoke of “at the top of the world”. Hector, almost despite himself, is touched and grateful. The chase continues until the authorities close in and the two must come to terms with their friendship and their outlaw mentality.
Waititi toes a fine line in this film (as he did with JoJo Rabbit) between pathos and humor. Ricky, for all his aspirational bad boy gangster wannabe behaviors, is a bit of a doofus. He makes up and recites goofy and decidedly inappropriate haikus which he was taught to write to help express his feelings. He is also a very smart boy who seems to—almost implausibly for an iffy student—well-read. When he fakes his death, he stuffs some of his clothes to create a body, drawing a face on a pie tin, somehow thinking it would lend authenticity. Yet, when Ricky sees a hot-water bottle in his bed, he hugs it as if it was his long-lost mother.
Bella is a completely charming character who is a blend of goodwill, humor, practicality, and patience. Her goofy enthusiasm and humor is infectious. When she gives Ricky a dog, that he promptly names Tupac, for his birthday, the boy’s obvious enthusiastic response is heart-warming, as is Bella’s birthday song.
The bad guys, Paula and her minions, are little more than caricatures, as are the Nazis in JoJo Rabbit. By ridiculing them, Waititi is able to maintain his balance between the humor and the pathos. If the villains are ridiculous, they seem far less menacing than they, by all rights, should.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople is a completely enjoyable film. Shot (mostly with one camera) in the wilds of New Zealand, it shows the wildness and beauty of the bush as well as the stalwart folks who live there. The story of Ricky and Hector, two opposites who form an unlikely bond, is hardly a new story. But in Waititi’s hands, it becomes an affirmation of family and a confirmation of the value of innocence and trust.
Bella, Kahu, and her father accept Ricky unconditionally. Bella accepts Ricky for who he is and allows him the freedom to find himself. The dad, smitten with his celebrity, is only concerned with shooting a series of selfies with the boy. Kahu just seems to want a friend. This is a thematic constant in Waititi’s work, the power of innocence, acceptance, and naivete.
Taiki Waititi’s films sometimes seem as if they arise from the mind of a precocious and brilliant child, one who believes in the power of love, family, and humanity in the face of oppression, hate, and cynicism. This is his singular vision and his precious gift to the world.