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Whakakau Paikea hei! Whakakau he tipua hei!
Anyone who's known me for any amount of time has an inkling of my deep and abiding fascination with the ocean, particularly the Pacific. In high school, my favorite books were ones like Captains Courageous and especially Kon-Tiki. These novels would draw me deep into my imagination, into a bright, splashing world suffused with shades of blue, and the sounds were the creaks of ship timbers and waves slapping against wood or land.
I was really curious when I started seeing Whale Rider advertised. Then, on my little jaunt to Auckland, my interest was whetted by my close exposure to Maori culture. I'd been wanting to watch it for a while, and even though the Dendy cinema is just down the road from us on King St, I could never persuade Mr Wiggins to commit to watching it. I was reluctantly debating whether to just go on my own when G came to my rescue. She is an academic at UNSW and the wife of Adam's co-supervisor for his PhD. They live about 10 minutes away from us, so we tend to socialize a lot with them. Good people. Anyway, G just had a baby and is taking a sabbatical this year, so spends a fair amount of time at home. She can never convince M (her husband) to watch films without large explosions, so we did the "chick flick" thing together.
Actually, referring to Whale Rider as a chick flick does it great injustice, although unfortunately it has a lot of motifs that would tend to get it pigeonholed in that way. Within the first ten minutes of the movie, I had a huge burning ball in my throat and behind my eyes and it stayed there. The film announces its emotional power right from the beginning, and then locks eyes you and keeps you mesmerized all the way through. Keisha Castle-Hughes was mind-blowingly eloquent for an eleven year old girl who had no previous acting experience. I found the humor to be nicely interspersed with the drama, relieving tension for the next big emotional buildup. The New Zealand scenery was gorgeous, and even the few scenes where artificial whales were used weren't obviously "fake" enough to be obtrusive.
The story itself is what's compelling to me, though. Reminiscent of US indie great Smoke Signals, the broader story is one about an indigenous culture that is falling apart, and the struggle of its people to reconcile the modern world and its circumstances with maintaining their ancient heritage. (The Maori, especially, emphasize lineage and ancestry as a source of personal and cultural pride.) It's a story that attempts to understand the sacred and how our understanding of it grows and changes.
Koro is a chief, and is looking for a leader to take his place in the community. When his oldest son's wife is ready to give birth, he believes she will produce the heir he's been looking for. But things get complicated as his daughter-in-law gives birth to twins, a boy and a girl, and she and the baby boy both die in the process. Porourangi, Koro's oldest son, runs away, unable to deal with his father's expectations and the grief of losing a wife and a son in one day, leaving his infant daughter in the care of her stern, unyielding grandfather and his quietly rebellious wife Flowers.
Little Pai is named after her famous ancestor, Paikea-- her father Porourangi's parting shot at Koro. She loves her grandfather and shares his deep love for their culture and traditions. And though it's obvious he loves Pai in return, his dogmatic beliefs won't make room for the grandaughter that was born the wrong gender.
There's a deep symbolism in the fact that Pai survived her twin brother, and her character is balanced between masculine and feminine traits. In defiance of her grandfather's beliefs, she learns mau rakau, the Maori martial art, and chants and ceremonies that are supposed to be reserved for the new male chief. But she is also a healer, and it's her sensitivity and her sense of responsibility to her people, along with her courage and strength, that prove her grandfather mistaken in the end. It takes all aspects of her character for her to become the wise leader her grandfather needs.
At the Museum of Auckland, it was clear from the exhibits that the Maori are traditionally a male-dominated culture. But there was also evidence that the women could be just as fierce warriors, and historical records document wives fighting alongside their husbands in battles with Europeans. I found it interesting that the film explored issues of gender without bringing up this fact. Perhaps modern Maoris don't have women warriors anymore, or perhaps they were rarer than I assumed from the information in the museum. Still, I thought that the film was believable and the gender themes hit close to home for me. I've never exactly fit societal expectations for female behavior.
Whale Rider was a film that was not only entertainment, it was a transforming experience. Don't miss an opportunity to see it.
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