The Young Girl and the Sea
Once in a while a film comes along that is sound, smart, sweet and significant. Whale Rider is such a film. Fault the project on various counts if you like (I’ll try), but ultimately the tale is beyond reproach, a bane to cynics and a boon to anyone who enjoys spirited, emotionally provocative cinema.
At this crowd pleaser’s core lies a very familiar high-concept pitch: girl versus boys. This conflict is ubiquitous lately in cinematic entertainments wherein females kick, punch, leap and shoot to prove quién es mís macho. Refreshingly, Whale Rider — very much like the recent Bend It Like Beckham or Real Women Have Curves — takes a more elegant approach to its feminist salvo, raising its sensibilities above cheap hyperbole.
Our focal point is Paikea (wunderkind discovery Keisha Castle-Hughes), a preteen Maori girl named by her bohemian father, Porourangi (Hollywood staple Cliff Curtis), after an even more significant ancestor than his own ancient namesake. The original Paikea is believed by the Ngati Konohi tribe of Whangara, New Zealand, to have brought new life to their shores a thousand years ago, arriving from the ancestral realm of Hawaiki (not Hawaii) astride a whale.
Porourangi’s wife dies in childbirth, taking baby Paikea’s male twin with her. Heartbroken, Porourangi flees to Germany to practice his art, leaving Paikea to be raised by her whip-smart grandmother Nanny Flowers (energetic Vicky Haughton) and unrepentantly sexist grandfather Koro Apirana (Rawiri Paratene, working wonders with a challenging role). Her culturally resonant name shortened to Pai, the girl spends much of her childhood striving to earn Koro’s acceptance and respect, which he withholds out of profound disappointment that she is not a boy he can train to take over as the next rangatira, or tribal chief.
The elder’s quest for the perfect boy-chief turns him into a sort of deranged Mr. Miyagi, while Pai desperately seeks to enter both his training courses and his deeper affections. This enhanced focus prompts many alterations, including Porourangi’s second-act departure to Germany, the simplification of our young heroine’s name (in the book, she’s Kahutia Te Rangi, or Kahu), and the excising of much whale mythology.
The climax and conclusion are fairly predictable, but there’s a telling scene in the middle, in which Koro likens the rope of his boat’s motor to his ancestry, only to have the threads snap in his hands. Pai’s simple solution — to retie the rope and start the motor, to reconnect to the sea, and ultimately to take whale movies way beyond Orca, Free Willy or Star Trek IV — focuses the power of interconnectedness on a seemingly routine gesture. It also reveals Caro’s skill as a filmmaker; her Whale Rider delivers the feeling of a dream one wishes would come true.
