Well into the movie Sgt. Haane, his niece, Dr Donna Morrison, reaches for a way to communicate the scale of her tipuna’s superhuman exploits in North Africa during World War 2.
It’s like something out of a fairytale, from a Marvel comic, she says.
Later, Tunisian man Nizar Chhoubi frames the story of Sergeant Haane Manahi in more mortal terms.
‘‘We’re here now because of the Māori soldiers of New Zealand,’’ he tells young Youssef Chhoubi.
But then his telling takes a mythical turn, too.
‘‘He will forever be the Legend of Takrouna.’’
Their family must continue to pass the story down, he says.
In Te Arawa, they have made sure of it in the words of a haka written by Uenuku Fairhall.
Haane! E koro e!
Tangata wehi kore, tangata māia!
Tītoko-o-te-rangi,
whakawhiti-o-te-rā
Ka haruru te whenua i Takarauna!
Haane! Oh Koro!
A fearless man, a brave man!
Sky-propper, sun-raiser
The land shook at Takrouna!
Sgt. Haane, a new film by director Tearepa Kahi (Muru, Poi E: The Story of Our Song), recounts Manahi’s scarcely believable feats of bravery, when he led a handful of soldiers from the 28th Māori Battalion to take a seemingly impregnable enemy position, atop the ancient rock fortress of Takrouna, in Tunisia.
During the making of the film, actor Vinnie Bennett had as good a vantage point as anyone to assess the Manahi legend. He plays Hinga Grant, Manahi’s right-hand man in B Company — who were at the sharp end of the battalion’s assault.
It boggles the mind, he says.
‘‘As Tearepa was explaining to us, I'm like, ‘hold on, so, wait ... this part they're climbing up?’.’’
And the director would show his cast a photograph of the sheer cliff face concerned.
‘‘We were just like, ‘oh, wow, OK, wait, and this is a true story?’’
Yes, true story.
The events took place in April 1943 when, confronted by the formidable obstacle Takrouna posed to the Allied advance, the generals turned again to the 28th Māori Battalion — less than a month after the fighting at Tebaga Gap, during which the battalion’s 2nd Lieutenant Te Moananui-a-Kiwa Ngarimu had won the Victoria Cross.
Takrouna was festooned with machine gun posts and artillery and B Company was soon without its officers as they fell to enemy fire.
That left it to Manahi, a corporal, to step into the breach as lance sergeant, and lead a small group of soldiers — many of whom were whanaunga — up the precipitous cliff face that his commanders had deemed too formidable for 20,000 men to take. Not only were they successful, but they took hundreds of prisoners while withstanding enemy counter-attacks.
When it was all over, three generals and a field marshal — Bennett, Freyberg, Kippenberger, Montgomery — put their names to a Victoria Cross recommendation, only for an unnamed British War Office official to downgrade the award to a Distinguished Conduct Medal.
Bennett (Ngāi Tūāhuriri, Kāi Tahu, Te Aowera, Ngāti Porou, Ngāpuhi) says while he knew of the reputation of the 28th, he was learning much of this detail during the course of filming, all of which left him profoundly honoured to be involved.
‘‘I think all of us felt that and knew that we had to bring it to convey this hero in the most truthful and honourable way possible.’’
During the making of the film, Alex Tarrant (Ngāti Pāoa, Ngāti Whakaue), who plays Manahi, led that effort, Bennett says.
‘‘We were able to follow Alex and Sergeant Haane, the character and the actor into that process,’’ he says.
That leadership then radiated out through the wider cast.
‘‘I think that was all masterfully led by Alex. So, I definitely take my hat off to him for creating that space.’’
‘‘He is very, very, very serious about his craft and — not that we aren't — but he always knows what's required and he always really sinks himself into the roles.’’
The film mixes re-enactments, filmed mainly around West Auckland, with interviews with B Company descendants and on-location filming in Tunisia, that includes the interviews with Nizar Chhoubi.
At one point, Dr Morrison invites the film into Tamatekapua, the wharenui at Ohinemutu, Rotorua, where a tekoteko (carved figure) of Haane Manahi stands — the only tipuna in living memory to have been given such an honour.
The carved figure holds a rifle with a VC-shaped space on the butt where the medal should be.
‘‘He was able to bring into being all of the strengths of his tūpuna, all of the strengths of what he had been taught to lead these men, and they would follow him,’’ she says.
Manahi had been chosen and was taught the ancient lore of Ngāti Whakaue by the veterans of World War 1, men who had in turn been given the mātauranga (knowledge) by the tribe’s fighting chiefs, another descendant of B Company relates.
This mātauranga embraced both peace and war.
At Takrouna, Chhoubi tells his son how Manahi and his men, despite the precariousness of their situation, went out of their way to protect his family — including his grandfather Salah — who had taken shelter in a cave.
‘‘My grandfather passed down the story of Manahi, who will forever be, the Legend of Takrouna.’’
Necessarily, beside the celebration of Manahi’s bravery, is the acknowledgement of the terrible price the 28th Battalion paid in killed and wounded.
At Tamatekapua, the descendants of B Company display the framed photographs of those, unlike Manahi, who did not return.
The film also asks us to remember that even those who did return were often denied their due.
Another descendant of the B Company men, Hingawaru Grant jun, the son of the character Bennett plays, says they came home as second class citizens because that was the way society treated Māori at the time.
His own father had to bandage his legs long after the the fighting had finished as the shrapnel still lodged there slowly worked its way from his body. Yet, ‘‘the price of citizenship’’ paid on the battlefields was not honoured in the peace.
Bennett recognises that pain from the story of one of his own tipuna, who fought for the British in another war but lost his land anyway.
It’s history that means Manahi’s story remains as relevant as ever.
Certainly Bennett believes it’s important that people see the film.
‘‘I really hope that everyone from Aotearoa will take some time to hear the story and to see the story and to listen, because it's a story for all New Zealanders to be proud of.
‘‘I think not just Māori, not just those who are descendants from that particular battalion.
‘‘It's an amazing story that I think all Kiwis can see and hopefully hold their heads high knowing that that was our people and that's how we roll, that's how we used to do things.’’
