The "Knack" of the Wilderpeople: Post-settlement cinema in Aotearoa New Zealand

In the context of Aotearoa New Zealand, “post-settlement” alludes to the imagined end of colonialism, yet the enduring coloniality of New Zealand society can be grasped in its contemporary cinema. Informed by the nation-branding films of Peter Jackson, the naïve irony of Kiwi humor, and the Fourth Cinema of tangata whenua (people of the land), “post-settlement cinema” both acknowledges and assuages the historical anxieties of non-Māori settlers. As a case study, we focus on Taika Waititi’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016), which, we argue, is infused with nostalgia for a shared media culture and, at the same time, interrupted by the oblique assertion of Māori claims. What we call “settler colonial jouissance,” rooted in a double structure of colonial wound and indigenous history, pervades post-settlement cinema and calls for a director with a particular “knack.”