TV review

I saw suggested she was becoming psychotic, that she was having extreme changes in her mood,” says Dr Tapsell.

She is taken to her grandfather’s small flat and on Monday a tohunga is called. He blesses her with water and karakia are performed. The white stone lion is returned. Like in a horror movie things seem to be getting better, only to suddenly get a lot worse. The family begin the makutu lifting on Tuesday, gently singing the mantra: “Go with peace and love.” By Wednesday that mantra has morphed into a foot-stomping chant.

While the idea of dramatic reenactments might still evoke the hammy acting of old Crimewatch episodes, those in Belief — based on evidence that was given to or heard by the High Court — are unnervingly convincing. In particular, the performance of Kura Forrester as the possessed young woman is incredibly powerful, and Hariata Moriarty as her young relative, who was also subject to makutu, is perfect in her recreation of the girl’s police interview.

As hysteria descends on the house, two things become clear. The first is

The death of Janet Moses is a sad, difficult story; Belief tells it with poise and clarity.

that the family who performed the ritual were acting out of a deep and unmistakable sense of love; the second is that none of them seemed to know what they were doing.

“There was a whole shift away from the spiritual structure of Maori society,” cultural adviser Pouroto Ngaropo explains. “Now we are confronted with makutu, how well do we understand . . . what’s happening?”

The film grapples with the many ways of understanding what took place that week. We hear from both sides of the 2009 manslaughter trial: defence counsel Phil Mitchell, who says “they genuinely believed there was something very malignant and dangerous within her,” and Crown prosecutor Grant Burston, who adds “you can’t just act on bizarre beliefs and kill someone and nothing is done about it.”

Then Tuhoe spokesman Tamati Cairns: “Makutu is not something that might be regarded as an oddity — it is simply part and parcel of a Maori understanding of life.”

The death of Janet Moses is a sad, difficult story; Belief tells it with poise and clarity. “It still hurts today,” says a family friend interviewed at the beginning. “It’ll probably hurt forever, what happened to Janet.”