The Whanganui River in Aotearoa/New Zealand is the first river in the world to be recognised as a legal person – as a living and indivisible being – and this engaging and informative documentary might well be the first film where a river receives a shared on-screen ‘created by’ credit along with filmmaker Petr Lom and his producer partner Corinne van Egeraat.
The enlightened decision by the New Zealand government to make this decision helps make film I Am The River, The River is Me all that it is – part canoe travelogue and part rumination on Māori tradition and customs and shows, specifically, how Māori culture links so explicitly with the river. That the Whanganui River is very much the lead character of the film is both appropriate and profound.
At the opening of the film, Māori river guardian Reneti (Ned) Tapa expresses how “the river is the biggest player in who I am…I feel that it is my job to ensure that what I’ve been given, I hand on to others.”
Ned is very much the guide to the film as well as the river, and despite being shot over a three-year period, the journey along with river in which Ned guides the European film crew, as well as a gathering of friends and colleagues from Australia, is the spine of the work.
The river is recognized as a legal person, with the 2017 Te Awa Tupua Act defining it as an indivisible and living whole, comprising its flow from the mountains to the sea incorporating its tributaries, and all its physical and metaphysical elements. It recognises Whanganui River as a legal person, with all the corresponding rights, duties and responsibilities.
Before the canoes set off, Ned gathers the travellers and hosts a ‘ruruku’ during which he invokes “notification from our ancestors and from our atua, or guardians of specific realms, that we call upon to come and enhance what we already have or to help us through troubled times that we may meet.”
Also invited on the five-day trip down the sacred river are Brendan Kennedy, a First Nations Elder from Australia and his activist daughter Melissa Kennedy, who are dedicated to saving their own dying river back home; artist Justine Muller; Ned’s Māori friend Des Canterbury; grandson Kanui Tapa and the international film crew (as well as Ned’s dog Jimmy).
The river very much unites all the travellers as a location where everyone has a voice – including the crew – as they share stories. Brendan talks about contrasts and similarities with Australia, while Ned discusses Tā moko, the tattoos of the Māori that reflect an individual’s whakapapa (ancestry) and personal history. When discussing the river, Ned describes how the Māori world is about guardianship and the non-Māori world is about ownership. He adds: “With ownership you can buy and sell tomorrow…with guardianship you’re there for as long as you have to be. I’m just the caretaker for a period of time while I’m here.”
Brendan talks about how industry and dams are killing indigenous areas of Australia. He talks about the brutal impact on the Aboriginal communities, how industry is killing “our land, killing our ancestral beings, killing our river which is the veins; and the creeks [which] are the arteries; and the lakes, the lagoons [which] are all the organs,” he says.
In sharp juxtaposition comes a sequence – mildly amusing but also rather disturbing – when the canoe is overtaken by a tourist powerboat speeding down the river, leaving the small vessel in its wake. Traditional Māori music artist Puoro Jerome also appears in, and provides the soundtrack for, the film. His music, or Taonga Puoro, literally ‘sound treasure’ (which sits alongside Sami music from composer Georg Buljohas) has healing as its original purpose.
Ned Tapa is a charismatic guide to the world of the Whanganui River (though his dog Jimmy is often a real scene-stealer) as he describes its importance and values, and clearly he has a strong relationship with Petr Lom and Corinne van Egeraat, given the warm sense of trust and intimacy that develops in the canoe. The film is intended to forefront the rights of nature, with a final on-screen credit noting that this call is now the fastest growing legal movement in the world.
Netherlands-Norway-New Zealand, 2024, 89mins
Dir/Cinematography: Petr Lom
Production: XINDOC, Whanganui River, Ten Thousand Images, KRO-NCRV/de Boeddhistische Blik
Producer: Corinne van Egeraat
Scr: Corinne van Egeraat, Petr Lom
Editor: Gys Zevenbergen
Music: Puoro Jerome, Georg Buljo
