The Convert Review: An Engaging Guy Pearce Drama Reversing the White Savior Complex
In The Convert, Australia's much awaited emotional response to Dances With Wolves, Guy Pearce gives a suitably moving performance.
Increasing Indigenous Representation in Motion Pictures
With everything from Reservation Dogs to Echo, Australian film has similarly been emphasizing Aboriginal culture as Hollywood finds itself increasing onscreen Indigenous presence. Among these movies, some—including the historical psychological thriller The Nightingale—have had success abroad. With The Convert, the movie not only aims to carry on this significant trend but also approaches the height of Kevin Costner's similarly regimented Dances With Wolves.
A subtle portrait of Māori culture
Originally from blockbuster director Lee Tamahori, himself of Māori background, The Convert centers on English preacher Thomas Munro. Munro is brought to Epworth, a British colony in the 1830s New Zealand with a precarious relationship with one of the surrounding Māori tribes. Munro finds himself caught in a war between another neighboring Māori tribe, so guiding him on a conflicted emotional path as he attempts to create a more peaceful coexistence between the British settlement and the tribe, many of whom have biassed sentiments toward the Aboriginal people.
Too often does a creative look to depict the latter culture with a very limited perspective, choosing to keep the line between the "good" and "bad" characters separate by making Indigenous groups the enemy. With a story centered on a white population looking to expand into a country's Native territory, this narrow perspective paints a picture of Having said that, there have been several tales that try to deviate from the norm by really showing the Native's side of the narrative, one of the more unforgettable ones being Costner's Dances with Wolves adaptation.
Avoiding oversimplified depictions of "good" and "bad" tribes, the Convert presents a nicely varied picture of Māori civilization. Rather, the movie looks at the complexity of Māori society and the several viewpoints and motives among the tribes. This method gives the narrative realism and complexity, so avoiding the trap of conventional portrayal.
Learning From Wolf Dances
Though not directly lifting from the story of the 1990 Western classic, The Convert explores related issues and shows it learned the correct lessons from the movie. With Father Munro seen as a rather direct parallel to Costner's Lt. John Dunbar, the two find themselves in an unexplored area of the globe for their people. Munro's commitment to his faith makes for a particularly interesting link when trying to grasp the viewpoints of the two Māori tribes, among other major and finest distinctions between them.
Māori Conflict: Balanced View
The Māori tribes themselves are also given a fairly fair representation of their circumstances at the time of Britain's attempted colonisation of New Zealand. Though it is done so in-depth thanks to sympathetic and subtly emotional sequences, both tribes engage fairly vicious attacks on each other as well as the immigrants. Beyond simply defending their territory, Tamahori and co-writer Shane Danielsen appropriately try to grasp the cultural causes of these tribal conflicts.
Guy Pearce Offers a Captivating Performance.
Given his Golden Globe nomination and Primetime Emmy victory, it would not be surprising that Pearce gives yet another outstanding performance in The Convert, one that is understated. Like his character, Pearce gently captures the curious and compassionate side of Father Munro, who is only trying to maintain peace between warring groups, while also yearning to learn from the Māori tribes. Pearce commands the screen even more as our knowledge of his reasons for choosing to be a priest and his troubled past grows.
Superb Māori Cast
And with The Convert giving the Māori people just as much screen time as Pearce's character, Tamahori's casting choices show great quality. Acting the emotionally broken Rangimai, Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne is a true powerhouse that gives her character more intriguing layers than what might have been on paper. For interesting foils to Pearce's calm Munro, Antonio Te Maioha's Maianui and Lawrence Makoare's Akatarewa also show to be far more than their violent exteriors would suggest.
Really beautiful direction visually
Following his directorial debut with the critically praised 1994 drama Once Were Warriors, which also deftly explored Māori culture through a then-modern lens, Tamahori became a go-to for helming a number of sequels to blockbuster franchises, ranging from the Morgan Freeman-led Alex Cross sequel Along Came a Spider to Pierce Brosnan's infamous James Bond outing, Die Another Day. Although many of these movies saw him follow the look set by their first runs, Tamahori has generally returned to reclaim his own original style with such recent projects like The Devil's Double and Mahana.
Re-teaming with his Mahana cinematographer Gin Loane, The Convert deftly carries on Tamahori's trend of delivering grounded, visually spectacular stories. Finding a perfect mix of natural and artificial lighting to create some moody atmosphere for many of the film's heavier sequences, the director uses the several New Zealand locations to really ground us in this world of the past. Particularly with the "no one's safe" narrative of the film, the few major battle scenes in it are also remarkably intense; the fight choreography and camera work keep us fixed to the screen.
Paced problems
The Convert's almost two-hour running length is one of the few problems it eventually encounters; it sometimes feels a little too deliberate. While some story beats feel as though they're being unnecessarily revisited after concluding, quieter moments that do offer significant character development still seem slow in their pacing and execution. Still, The Convert is by far Tamahori's best movie in years despite certain of its pacing issues.
Ultimately
The Convert is a strong and moving movie that presents Māori culture in 19th-century New Zealand in a sophisticated and convincing manner. By offering a more nuanced and realistic portrayal of the historical interactions between Māori and European immigrants, the film questions the conventional white savior stereotype. Guy Pearce gives a fantastic performance; the film's great direction and captivating cinematography produce a quite immersive experience. Although some would find the tempo a little slow, generally The Convert is a provocative and emotionally relevant movie worth seeing.
