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Local Talent Knits Together Moving and Uplifting Tale
NZ Herald
November 20, 2002

It's been a rough year for local films, the first since the 1970s with nothing on screen thanks in large part to the collapse of Kahukura Productions with four pictures in various stages of post-production. But the summer will look brighter once this indigenous gem starts sparkling in your local multiplex.

Whale Rider is an adaptation of Witi Ihimaera's 1987 novel, set in his home town of Whangara, north of Gisborne, but written when he was a diplomat in New York. The novel, like the best home thoughts from abroad, is drenched in a sense of place which director-writer Niki Caro has absorbed into her watchful and unfussy script.

Add in Leon Narbey's characteristically sublime cinematography, a haunting soundtrack by big-name composer Lisa Gerrard and a child performance as artless and affecting as you could wish to see, and you have the makings of a true-blue local classic.

What's striking about the film is that its poetic, even mythic, echoes never weigh it down: it manages to pay due respect to its Maori provenance and it deals with larger questions of the clash of generations, the repressiveness of tradition, and the changing role of women in a way which should have universal appeal. But it does all this by recourse to an utterly specific story which never loses its way.

Paikea (newcomer Keisha Castle-Hughes) is a 12-year-old girl whose twin brother and mother died at birth. "There was no gladness when I was born," she intones over the opening frames. Nor afterwards, it appears. Her shattered father (Cliff Curtis) leaves her to be raised by her grandparents (Rawiri Paratene and Vicky Haughton), in the process abandoning his claim to tribal chieftanship.

Paikea aches to shoulder the mantle of leadership which, ancient tradition dictates, belongs to her absent father and dead brother. But her hidebound grandfather refuses to acknowledge her as the inheritor and the film is, in essence, the story of her pursuit of her claim.

Caro, author of the exquisitely beautiful but narratively suspect Memory and Desire, has an unerring feel for the story's pulse here. She also has an artist's eye for her location: the rough furrows in a concrete wall, the sheen of spilt gravy on old linoleum, the way the wind turns sand into scudding clouds.

And she has a feel for the texture of human relationships as well. When Paratene's furious Koro spits out his feelings about his artist son's work ("It's not work," he explodes. "it's souvenirs!"), a lifetime of disappointed rage is distilled into a single line.

The film is not without its faults. It feels a bit episodic to start with (though it soon settles into a beguiling rhythm) and though Paratene, the cast's senior member, turns in a splendid performance, his character seems so remorselessly stern we long to see a tender side.

Meanwhile, the climactic scene has a few visual non sequiturs and the ending mops up a bit too much, a bit too quickly. But these are minor quibbles. Castle-Hughes performance is winning and the movie, which is incidentally a vibrant showcase of the Maori culture tourists don't see, a touching and uplifting show that will appeal to all ages.

The first fruit of the Film Production Fund set up by the Government when it took office, it's coming your way from the end of January. Take a look. You'll have to agree it was money well spent.