Emma:

What do you think is the significance of the raven and the black cat in Tama Tū? What do they symbolize? What purpose do they serve in the film?

Two Cars, One Night was made in 2004 and Boy in 2010. Do you feel Waititi drew inspiration from this short in making Boy? Explain.

What were the major similarities and differences in the construction of these shorts versus Waititi’s feature films (besides length)? Think about film style (e.g. stop motion), storyline, dialogue, symbolism, etc.

Sarah:

The raven and the black cat almost serve as reminders for the soldiers of the situation they are in, warnings that the war is not too far away. The soldiers joke around a play pranks, mainly because they’re waiting for a clear way to leave their current base or nightfall so they can leave without being shot, but it still distracts them from the reality of their situation. The first time the raven turns up, the soldiers have to leave their current base to travel to the next one, running in fear of being shot on the way to find proper cover. Then the soldier on watch sees the German soldier trying to pet the cat, only to watch him be shot for his efforts. Even kind efforts are not well rewarded. Then not too long after, the raven appears to still the soldier’s quiet chuckling and right on its heels (if ravens do have heels…) is the sound of gunfire. After that, the film cuts to nightfall, when the small battalion leaves the relative safety of their hiding place to keep moving forward.

I would definitely say that Waititi drew inspiration for Boy from Two Cars, One Night. Both tackle with less-than-wealthy Maori kids with less-than-ideal parents--after all, in Two Cars, One Night all three kids are left in the car while the adults go to a hotel, probably for the bar. The dialogue style in the short was also very similar to that of Boy with epithets such as “boy” and “egg” used and a few references--namely “Crazy Horses”--from Two Cars, One Night comes to play a much larger role in Boy, being the name of Alamein’s gang.

Probably the largest difference between Tama Tū and any of Waititi’s other films is the lack of spoken dialogue. While the soldier’s interacted through facial expressions, gestures, and even lip reading, they did not speak audibly throughout the entire short. Of course, that makes perfect sense considering that they were trying to hide from enemy soldiers during a war--making a lot of noise by talking would be the easiest way to get caught--but it still made for a stark contrast between Waititi’s other films. Every sound was magnified by the silence, making each one incredibly important, as opposed to in his other films where sounds were more plentiful. I would not say there is a great difference in symbolism from the short films to the feature length ones, though the symbols seem clearer and more obvious in the shorts due to the film’s length. But each of Waititi’s films has a great deal of symbolism: Boy has the Crazy Horses badge and the Shogun helmet (to name a few), Eagle vs. Shark had the apples and the sleeping bags, Tama Tū had the raven and the cat, and Two Cars, One Night had the “diamond” ring. In terms of storyline, the shorts differed greatly from the feature films, mostly because there is less time to have long complicated plots. Both of the shorts focused on the idea of waiting: the soldiers waiting in the abandoned house and the kids waiting in the cars. The feature films had much longer and more ornate stories because they had the time to execute the full arc of a romance and the coming of age of a child (and his parent).

Taylor:

The raven and the black cat are surrounded by violence and death. I feel that these animals are commonly associated with approaching ill fortune, and in the film these ideas are paralleled with the fear and cautious nature of the soldiers, and also the soldier who was shot while petting the cat. I feel that they serve as ill-omened symbols that contribute to the intense feel of this film.

Waititi’s Two Cars, One Night and Boy are incredibly similar. The two boys in the short film can easily be compared to Boy and Rocky, and the girl to one of Boy’s classmates. In addition I wouldn’t be surprised if Waititi mirrored the car scenes in front of the bar in Boy to the setting of the short film. Similar words are used such as “Boy”, “Crazy horse” is mentioned, and the children joke with  each other like the children in Boy did.