Whale Rider
Reviewed by Gordon Kearns
Please be informed, this is a detailed review, and includes key plot elements (Spoilers)
It's a small Maori tribe on the east coast of New Zealand. North Island, as I understand, although it wasn't stated in the story, as I remember. The tribe is fading into the modern cosmopolitan world. The conflict in this movie isn't the tribe against the outside world. Very few allusions are made to the outside world. A modern SUV. An outboard motor. Houses with windows, stoves, and slide-projectors. They aren't living in the stone age. But they are in danger of extinction as a culture. Three generations are played for us in this story: The old ones, the stout followers and keepers of tradition - embodied in their powerful hereditary leader, Koro; Their children, the disaffected, into sloth and alcohol and drugs or running off to the outside world's blessings - the tribal drop-outs ... they are well schooled in tradition, but are turning their backs to it - embodied in Koro's two sons, Porourangi - first born son and as such the heir-apparent to Koro's position as tribal leader, and Rawiri and as second born son he has no special place in Koro's design for the tribe's future; And the youngsters, the eleven to fourteen year olds, to whom their parents have passed on little of their cultural heritage. Clear slates, ready to go either way - embodied by one particular quiet boy of about twelve, already into smoking and just biding his time until he's old enough to get out. In this group is Paikea, Koro's twelve year old granddaughter, who alone among all the young people embraces the tribe's legends and traditions, and who represents the tribe's only hope for a future of tribal unity and pride, although she will have to struggle against her own beloved, but tradition-bound grandfather if she is to do it. There's a scene early in the movie: Koro is just opening his school to teach the traditions of their culture to the young boys of the tribe in hopes of finding among them a great leader who will take the tribe out of the darkness they've fallen into. In the ritual opening of the school, Koro's wife Nanny Flowers stands by Koro and the boys' fathers and begins a beautiful impassioned ritual chant. Her phrases are responded to by the equally beautiful and impassioned ritual chant of her granddaughter Pai leading the boys into the yard. The essence of the movie is laid out in that scene, the young stepping into the culture of the old ... but evolving something new from it - these modern-clothed and haircut kids in shiny big league team jackets, giggling now and then at some of the stodgy rituals, but at this moment turned serious as they listen to the chants - realizing, perhaps, that something big is about to happen with them.
The tribal leadership is a patriarchy passed from father to first-born son, dating back to the tribe's origins on these shores. Legend has it that the first leader, Paikea, was brought here on the back of a whale, which had taken him up as he floundered in the sea. The story opens as the wife of Koro's first-born son Porourangi is giving birth to twins, a boy and a girl. Tragedy strikes, as both mother and the boy twin dies. The distraught Porourangi is shocked when his father presses him to quickly get another mate and thereby have another chance at a son. The angry young man names the girl-child "Paikea", after the legendary founder of the tribe, and leaves to make his way as a modern sculptor in the outside world. Paikea remains in the care of her grandparents. Koro accepts the responsibility of keeping the child, and even becomes an attentive, doting grandfather to her. But always he carries a resentment that she survived and the boy twin didn't. The patriarchal line of leadership is broken. He will later cruelly say of Pai, "I have no use for her." When Pai is twelve, her father returns and offers to take her to the outside world with him, an offer she almost accepts in light of Koro's abiding scorn. But she chooses to remain. She is steeped in the tribal legends and sees no reason why her gender should stand in the way of leadership progression. She senses that her name is an omen, and she feels a responsibility to her people. And somehow she also senses that a new leadership, a new kind of revitalized leadership, is sorely needed by the fading tribe.
In his desperation, Koro then looks to the young boys of the tribe for a natural leader who will lead the tribe out of the darkness into which it had fallen and into a new light. He insists that the answer is in unswerving absolute dedication to the old established beloved traditions and rituals, and sets about a strict training program for the boys, in which they will learn the beauty, power, and traditions of their culture. Pai tunes into the lessons from the sidelines ... and learns from them, and with the help of her Uncle Rawiri she even learns to use the tribe's ritual martial arts staff. This infuriates Koro and time after time he rebuffs her efforts. This is not the place of a female. With each rebuff, Pai's efforts recede ... for a time, but each time she will return to her dedicated efforts to learn.
The boys' training culminates in a definitive test. Koro takes them to a deep part of the ocean just off a rugged area of coastline. He takes off the whale tooth he has hanging from his neck - the traditional symbol of tribal leadership - and throws it into the sea. The boys are told to dive after it, the one who returns with it will be the next tribal leader. None are able to retrieve it, and it falls to the ocean floor among the seaweeds there. Later when Rawiri takes Pai to the same spot, she dives in and easily recovers the tooth. Her uncle and her grandmother decide to keep this turn of events from Koro until the right time, knowing that the old man will never accept Pai's claim, and might even hurt her for her presumption. However, at the moment Koro is crushed that none of the boys was able to earn the leadership position, and he sees the future of the tribe as doomed. He crawls into bed and turns his back on the world.
Through all this, Pai has never wavered in her love for her grandfather. At a major school program she has volunteered to recite the legend of Paikea, and has dedicated her reading to her grandfather. She places a personal invitation on the bed beside him. Her grandmother, a strong-willed person in her own right, forcibly stuns him out of his lethargy, demanding that he do his duty to his grandchild and attend her program. The man dresses in the suit she laid out for him and begins to make his way to the hall. He never gets there.
Pai begins her recitation, crushed that her beloved grandfather isn't there. Her recitation begins with the sad fact that she survived and her twin brother, who would have been the hereditary leader had died, breaking the tradition. But she continues on, calling for the tribe to unite on its own; it doesn't need a titular head to gel as a culture. It needs only that the people rise to meet their challenges as a united force. The recitation is heartbreaking, because this was her way of telling her saddened grandfather that just because he can't find a natural leader doesn't mean that the tribe is dead. But he isn't there to hear. Her plea is punctuated by tears and hesitations; perhaps she is also speaking to a culture in disarray and itself almost absent, in the futile hope for the people to hear her.
In the meantime Koro has found the beach filled with stranded whales. He was in shock: whales are sacred to his tribe and he repeated again and again, "Who is to blame for this?" In his single-minded blindness he focuses on Pai's irreverent cultural presumptions. We next see Pai waking the next morning to look out on the scene of the tribespeople desperately trying to save the stranded whales (covering with wet sheets, etc.). When she tries to join the group Koro brusquely turns her away. The people figure that if they can get the largest whale, obviously the leader of the pod, back into the ocean with the next tide, the others will follow. Their heroic attempt to tie a line to his tail and pull together with the help of a tractor fails when the rope breaks. As they walk dejectedly away, Pai approaches the giant whale and talks to him ... and touches hum ... and ritually puts her brow to its head. She climbs onto his back and urges him on. As the tide rolls in, the giant moves and slowly makes his way out to sea, Pai on his back. When the people turn around, the whale is gone, only to be seen in the distance with the small figure on its back. The other whales follow. This potentially tragic turn of events has the people spellbound. Her grandmother goes to pieces, wailing her grief to the wind because it looks as if her beloved Pai is lost. That's when she goes to Koro and angrily thrusts the whale tooth into his hands. When he asks which got it, reflecting more his concern for the tribal tradition than his threatened granddaughter, she says, "You shouldn't have to ask." He finally sees the light, but it seems too late. We follow Pai's progress on the back of the whale. She holds on tightly even as he goes deeper beneath the surface. We see her finally releasing her grip and floating away. To all on shore she is lost. Long after everyone goes home Koro receives a call. Apparently Pai was found alive and was now at the hospital. Koro sits at her side as she lies unconscious, and he whispers, "Oh, wise leader. I am but a fledgling." When she opened her eyes and sees him, there is underplayed recognition, but no gleam of a satisfied smile on her face.
We next see the whole tribe united in the effort to launch their ritual long-canoe out to sea. Inspired by Pai's courageous act and seeing in her the realization of the legendary prophesy of Paikea's return to lead the tribe back to the light, all the disaffected and tribal drop-outs are working as one people in the project, chanting a historic chant together, rowing the boat in ritualistic unison. Koro sits in the center of the boat; Pai - wearing the whale's tooth around her neck - sits at his side. She says, "I'm not a prophet." Her happiness is in the rebirth of the tribe. It's an uplifting ending, but not so much for her, as for the tribe. It was a movie that bucked the trend: it paid homage to a cultural heritage. The child Pai loved her tribal heritage every bit as much as Koro, and wanted its rebirth every bit as much. It's just that the culture needed the push to adapt some of its treasured traditions to meet new challenges in a new generation. This would be Pai's legacy, perhaps to be sung in future chants celebrating the legend of the new Paikea.
Paikea played by Keisha Castle-Hughes
Koro played by Rawiri Paratene
Nanny played by Vicky Houghton
Directed by Niki Caro.
Screenplay by Niki Caro
From novel by Witi Ihimaera
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Comments: GKEARNS@prodigy.net