‘Sons for the Return Home’

Press, 5 August 1981, Page 18

‘Sons for the Return Home’

The New Zealand film on One tonight is “Sons for the Return Home.”

A Samoan familj’ arrive back in Western Samoa. They've come home after fifteen years in a New Zealand city, where their younger son. Sione. was successful at school and at university. to begin a noticeably affluent life back in their home village. Sione's mother' is a headstrong and dominating woman who is proud of her son’s success. She calls him the most educated man in Samoa, and tells her friends how clever he is.

But Sione is embarrassed by her constant praise and is overwhelmed by the lush and primitive Samoan environment; his childhood in NewZealand has not prepared him for his return to his family’s home. He’s also disturbed by memories of a New Zealand love affair which deeply involved him with a European girl from a wealthy family — a girl who has felt forced to escape from her home environment and who, he knows only too well, is now alone in London. Her name is Sarah. Sione is intrigued by her direct and provocative manner when they first meet, by chance, in a crowded university cafeteria.

For her part, she responds to what she sees as his mvsterious silences.

They quickly become lovers, but their passionate encounters are complicated by Sione’s deepfelt but unspoken anger against his European surroundings, and by Sarah’s disturbed family background.

Sarah and Sione set out for a summer camping trip, in spite of Sione’s mother; her influence has dominated her son's life so far. but —. with the arrival of Sarah — she finds she has lost her control over him.

The holiday show’s Sione some of the strange beauty of New Zealand, which, as a city-dweller, he has never known before. It also helps the couple to start to come to term's with their opposing

racial and family backgrounds.

But their arrival at a borrowed holiday home on the shores of Lake Taupo leads to one small incident, seemingly insignificant, which starts a chain of events that leads on to the film’s shattering climax.

“Sons for the Return Home” is far more than just a love story. It also deals with the relationships of sons and mothers, fathers and daughters, immigrants and

their dream of finding a new life in a new country — a dream which is always displaced by many unexpected realities. Filmed on locations in Western Samoa, central London and throughout the North Island. “Sons for the Return Home" was directed by Paul Maunder, whose first major film. “Gone Up North For A While," won the Feltex Award for best TV drama of its y-ear. Fiona Lindsay plays Sarah.

She’s been an actress since her school days. Starring as Sione is Uelese Petaia, himself a migrant to New- Zealand. Uelese has lived in Christchurch and Hamilton and has been seen in several television programmes. His return home to western Samoa for the filming of “Sons for the Return Home" helped him decide to leave New Zealand — he is now living in Apia with his wife and two children. Sione’s mother is played

by Moira? Walker, a school teacher at a large Wellington college. Her role in the film is a particularly demanding one, because she is seen in tw-o different periods of her life, as a young mother and as an older woman.

Also acting in the film are Lani Tupu as Sione’s father; Alan Jervis as Sarah’s father. Anne Flannery as her mother. Sean Duffy as Sarah's first lover and Amalamo Tanielu as Malie.