Mr. Pip (2012)

Xzannjah Matsi: Matilda Naimo

Photos 

Quotes 

• Daniel : What's it like to be white?

  Mr. Watts : You mean what's it like to be white, or what's it like to be white here?

  Matilda Naimo : Both.

  Mr. Watts : A bit like what the last mammoth must have felt, I suppose. It's lonely, at times. I don't know. What's it like being black?

  Daniel : Normal.

  Matilda Naimo : We only feel black around white people.

  Mr. Watts : Yes, well, I'd say the same is true for me.

• Mrs. June Watts : The Queen of bloody Sheba. I didn't think about Grace much. I didn't give her nearly enough thought. She was always laughing. It was like living next door to someone who was permanently drunk. Couldn't imagine him on her island. What was he like... when you last saw him?

  Matilda Naimo : He was a gentleman. He was always a gentleman, Mrs. Watts.

• [Last lines] 

  Matilda Naimo : [Voice over]  My mother's name is Dolores Mary Naimo. My father's is Joseph Francis Naimo. My father worked with the Australians who gave him the name 'Matilda'. He gave it to my mother for her to give me, and so they called me Matilda and I came to be known as Matilda.

• [first lines] 

  Matilda Naimo : [narrating]  When I was young, my mother wove me a sleeping mat. She said that if I got lost in a bad dream, all I needed to do was roll over and feel the very seam. That seam was the current that would carry me home. But what if home was a bad dream?

• Matilda Naimo : [opening lines, voiceover]  Our teachers told us that the place we lived was called Bougainville, part of a small group of South Pacific islands owned by Papua New Guinea. But according to my mother, our island was a woman and we lived in her heart. She said no one could own that. But Papua New Guinea sold our heart to a mining company.

• Matilda Naimo : [voiceover, referring to Mr. Watts]  We thought Pop-Eye's tribe had forgotten him. Or that maybe he was being punished for an old crime.

• Dolores Naimo : That's a white man's name. No, Matilda, you heard wrong. Pop-Eye is the last white man around here. There's no others.

  Matilda Naimo : But Mr Watts says there is.

  Dolores Naimo : Hey, Leola!

  [in Papuan] 

  Dolores Naimo : You heard of some white man called Mr. Dickens around here?

  Leola : [in Papuan]  No, but I do know some Mr. Dickheads.

  [everybody laughs] 

  Leola : You see them everywhere!

  Dolores Naimo : [in Papuan]  Well, Matilda, if you see this Mr. Dickens, tell him to come fix our generator.

  Mrs. Kauona : [in Papuan]  And tell him he can stay at my place, if he's got some rice!

  Leola : [in Papuan]  What would you do with a white husband?

• Dolores Naimo : So he stole his mother's pork pie?

  Matilda Naimo : Pip's an orphan. He lives with his sister. Brought him up by hand.

  Dolores Naimo : Sounds like she needed to use her hand on him a little more.

• Matilda Naimo : My Dad's in Australia.

  Pip : Do you miss him?

  [pause] 

  Pip : I guess I'm lucky.

  Matilda Naimo : Why?

  Pip : I never knew my father long enough to miss him.

• Matilda Naimo : Is it strange to feel like I know Pip? I mean... really know him?

  Mr. Watts : I think that is probably the greatest compliment you could pay Mr. Dickens.

  Matilda Naimo : Do you know him too?

  Mr. Watts : My Pip is probably not exactly the same as your Pip, but yes, I believe I do.

• Dolores Naimo : Do you believe in the Devil, Matilda?

  Matilda Naimo : Mr Watts says that the Devil is just a symbol, not living flesh.

  Dolores Naimo : Nor is his Pip.

  Matilda Naimo : But you can't hear the Devil's voice. You can hear Pip's.

  Dolores Naimo : That's it. You're not going back to the school anymore.

  Matilda Naimo : Why? So I can be dumb like you?

• Herbert Pocket : [referring to Matilda]  Who was that, Handel?

  Pip : Nobody.

  Matilda Naimo : [interjecting indignantly]  His name is Pip.

  [to Pip] 

  Matilda Naimo : Or have you abandoned that too, along with Joe and everyone else?

  Pip : And you're so much better? I'm sorry, Matilda, but you have no idea what is expected of a gentleman.

  Matilda Naimo : I do. I just don't see one here.