'Lynda Dyson skilfully argues that the film is so preoccupied with upholding Ada's courgeois femininity and securing her fate in the colonial culture that it glosses over the history of Maori resistance. She locates her argument in the contemporary post-colonial anxieties over New Zealand's past, teasing out the primitivist discourse in the film that positions the Maori collectively outside of culture and history.' (p.xii)
Previously published in Screen 36.3 (Autumn 1995).