The Land Has Eyes (2004)
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The Land Has Eyes Movie Review
The Land Has Eyes is a 2004 Fijian drama film directed by Vilsoni Hereniko and starring Sapeta Taito in the main role. It is a culturally important and beautiful, though flawed movie.
It is about a young woman, Viki, attempting to escape the conformity of island culture. Inspired by the myth of the Warrior Woman, Viki seeks revenge after a neighbor accuses her father of stealing. First and foremost, Fiji is an Oceanian country that is among the most developed and most culturally diverse of the Pacific countries. But due to various reasons, they ended up having no cinema to speak of.
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This all changed with The Land Has Eyes, released in 2004. This was not only the first movie produced by Fiji in its entirety and not by other countries, but it still remains the only picture made in this country to this day. This makes it culturally important, so it needs to be respected in spite of its numerous flaws.
What are those flaws? For one, the overall look of the movie, which is quite subpar. For a film that was filmed on a shoestring budget, there was very little that the director Vilsoni Hereniko could do to elevate the material at hand more potently. His directing is pretty good undeniably, but it is the very poor cinematography that negatively impacted the movie the most.
There were many times when I was taken aback by how the movie was shot. It was well lit, but unfortunately too many times the scenes weren’t elevated as the actors were filmed from awkward angles and the end result was not a good-looking movie by any means, though the Pacific location did make for some gorgeous imagery of the island.
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Thankfully the acting performances are quite strong. The film was authentically cast by real Fijian natives, again resulting in that unique cultural feel. Rena Owen was pretty good as the Warrior Woman and quite memorable, but it is Sapeta Taito as Viki who really made an impact on the film. Her performance was natural and stupendous for a girl who was an amateur and who has never seen a film in her life prior to the filming of this one.
The Land Has Eyes features a particularly memorable, almost supernatural ending that maybe can be off-putting to some viewers, but it went in line with the movie’s main theme of stealing and using one’s land forcefully, thus it worked for me. The movie’s take on imperialism is not subtle at all, but it functions in this context as this message needs to be heard loud and clear.
The movie’s sense of immediacy and urgency was great and I did appreciate the well developed characters and the natural dialogue on display. The problem here was that the script ultimately felt too familiar and too straightforward for what should have been a more authentic movie given its cultural background and significance.
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The Land Has Eyes was the first and to this day the only movie produced in Fiji, so it has great cultural importance. It was filmed on a shoestring budget, resulting in weak technical aspects, particularly the poor cinematography. The authentic casting of natives, solid characterization and a great sense of urgency in its messaging promoting fighting for freedom and for the survival of one’s own culture all elevated what is otherwise a rather straightforward screenplay.
My Rating – 3.5
