White Lies, a New Zealand period piece

White Lies is a story set in colonial New Zealand. It's a clash of 3 women: Paraiti, a medicine woman facing prohibition of traditional medicine; Maraea, an arrogant servant of equally arrogant and condescending Rebecca, a rich young married pregnant white woman. Rebecca sends Maraea for Paraiti to assist in aborting her baby who could possibly destroy her position in European settler society.

Last weekend, my husband and I watched White Lies on Netflix. He noticed that men had no prominent roles in it at all. I noticed that but in another way, it's about women's business when men aren't around. I read a bunch of reviews and they all correctly stressed that the movie is about identity and protecting it. Finally, I wanted to know what the director thought. She's Mexican-born ex-pat living in New Zealand, Dana Rotberg.

Q: What's important to you when you make films about women and how does White Lies/Tuakiri Huna fit within your other work?

A: What I love about this film - and it’s something that was always in my head when I was writing the adaptation - is what happens in the moment when the male closes the door and goes into the world, to work, to provide, to produce. In that moment, another universe opens and awakens and it disappears and goes dormant again when the male comes back. That is a feeling that I always wanted to convey in this film…what happens in this villa in the absence of the man in what becomes a solely female universe.

https://wellywoodwoman.blogspot.com/2013/06/dana-rotberg-and-white-liestuakiri-huna.html

As heart-wrenching and beautiful as White Lies is, it felt good being in that universe where women make decisions with guidance and the support best for us. I think that you might find White Lies as moving as I do.