Word: viki
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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According to an ancient proverb of Rotuma, the tiny Fijian island that provides the setting for the film, the land has teeth and knows the truth. Viki (Sapeta Taito), the young protagonist of The Land Has Eyes, discovers one of these truths: the land to which you were born does not determine who you will become...
...film is helmed by director Vilsoni Hereniko, himself a native of Rotuma. Much of the movie centers on the emotional evolution of a young girl as she fights to cast off the shadow of a shamed family and cultural repression. Eyes chronicles the trials of Viki and her traditional family as her wise, gentle father is first accused and then unjustly convicted of stealing from a neighbor, a sentence which brings with it not only a steep fine but a crushing disgrace upon the entire family...
Resilient and proud even as she faces her community’s contempt, Viki struggles to help her family raise money to pay the fine and fights to restore her family’s good name. But Viki’s loyalty to the traditions of her native land is routinely rivaled by the expanding presence of modern Western influences, manifested throughout the film by the looming colonial government and its military presence...
...such theme is the presence of legend in the film. While Viki is at the same time assisted by the legend of the Warrior Woman, the island’s first settler and a figure of courageous independence, she is also frustrated by her culture’s collective expectations of dedication to the land...
Suddenly, Viki’s life is interrupted by her father’s devastating illness. In his last moments with his daughter, her dying father asks Viki to promise him that she will continue her studies and become a lawyer. “Lawyers lie,” she replies, to which he answers, “Be a lawyer who tells the truth...