What a great Act I. Oh, wait. There’s no more? Are you sure? Well, as a set-up, Power Meri works pretty well. As a full film, Power Meri is a failure. We need to see the development of women’s rugby in Papua New Guinea for at least five to ten more years before we can comment on this experiment properly.
Rugby is the national sport of Papua New Guinea. You know Papua New Guinea, right? It’s that island north of Australia with absolutely no new guinea pigs … what’s up with that? Anyhoo, the island makes few headlines outside Oceania –please correct me if I’m wrong on this point. But they love their rugby … so long as men are playing it. What happens when the women want to play, too? And get invited to world cup preliminaries?
Actually, the biggest problem with Power Meri is not that it hasn’t had the time to take shape; the biggest problem is the film can’t find a theme. Sure, Power Meri tells us the theme is empowerment, which is a legitimate and wonderful theme – please movie, show me empowerment. However, in the case of empowerment, fielding a team by itself is the important step; how they perform is nearly irrelevant. And yet, the film spent A LOT of time caring how they performed.
I don’t want to give anything away, but what do you think happens when the PNG Orchids, a team in its infancy and just a month or two from the idea phase, goes against the Australian Jillaroos, the best in the world at this particular sport? What you’re imagining? It happens. A painful amount. It doesn’t help that the team’s coach only speaks in clichés. After a 6-34 drubbing, he pointed out how close they were, how they “almost had it.” Hmmmm. No. Uh uh. Sorry. 6-8 is “close.” 6-10 is “we almost had it.” 6-34 is, “Here’s your ass, ladies. I’ve served it up nicely on a platter for you. Enjoy!” This is like the New York Jets finishing another drubbing in Foxboro and commenting, “We would have beaten the Patriots if we’d just scored six more touchdowns.”
And all the ESPN highlights of the beatdowns completely detract from the personalities on the team itself. If the film is about empowerment, show empowerment. Talk less about how the team captain is going to approach her next game or how the local chat lines predict the outcome and more about the personalities of the players and how the females of New Guinea are suddenly moved to great heights just because this team exists. Show how this endeavor is tied to a decrease in domestic violence nationally. I take next-to-nothing away from the women on this new national team other than “they could use some more practice.” If that’s the message you wanted me to take away, I’m pretty sure you’ve failed considerably.
♪Left a small league in the city
Passin’ round the ball every Saturday
And I never lost matches by huge scores
‘Til I made a scrum for the national team
Big boys keep on spurnin’
Po’er Meri is returnin’
Rugby!
Rugby!
Rugby in New Guinea! ♫
Not Rated, 78 Minutes
Director: Joanna Lester
Writer: Big O’Tree
Genre: Womensport
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: New Guinea feminists, I think
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: The kind of people who hate any form of progression
♪ Parody Inspired by “Proud Mary”
