Cousins

Such a fantastic movie! Had my eyes gripped to the big screen every second.

The story telling, the acting and culture so beautiful. Had me tears by the end.

This was one of the most touching, and yet difficult to watch films I've seen in a long time. It makes me think long and hard about the pain, suffering, and tremendous damage my colonial ancestors caused to indigenous people all around the world.

A film with a lot of heart (and a lot of plot holes).

Worth seeing.

Perhaps it needed a bit more time / budget.

Well I just had my heart gently pulled from my chest and handed to me wrapped in tissue. "Cousins" was as enchanting and heartbreaking as I could have hoped. So beautifully directed, intimately and cleverly told, weaving 3 narratives and 3 timelines and somehow never losing a thread. It will stay with me a long while. I loved it.

Entwines the very different lives of three Maori girls, cousins, through tumultuous decades, after one of them is taken from her family and raised in an orphanage.

A very moving and cinematic adaptation of Patricia Grace's novel, very effectively condensed into movie length while maintaining the scope and complexity of the multiple threads. The lives of these three women, though particular and intimate, effectively represents a larger story of a culture interrupted by colonialism but regaining its strength and groundedness. The interaction between the personal and the cultural, memory and the moment, are woven together with various events, spanning decades, creating a complex portrait revealing how the past, the present and the future interact with each other, how members of a family interact through space and time, in life and in death. Though the performances were sometimes uneven, the editing and Terence Malick-like cinematography very skillfully conveyed a specific yet expansive spiritual and cultural journey through the entire lives of three compelling and tangible characters.