Movie Moment: Whale Rider
“There was no gladness when I was born,” says Whale Rider‘s main character, young Pai. She’s right — her mother and twin brother died during childbirth, and this means that a long line of Maori chiefs made up of first-born males may end with her. As she tries to determine her birthright, Pai faces opposition, not least from her grandfather, who feels affection towards her yet traces all of the community’s hardship to the day she was born.
The film’s upbeat, inspiring message uses its New Zealand setting to lush effect, with expansive ocean views in nearly every scene. Yet the foreground is far from movie perfect, as the houses tend to be run down and the interiors stuck in the ’70s. (In fact, were it not for the satellite dishes and the more-or-less current cars, one could be forgiven for thinking this a period piece.)
The exploration of Maori tradition was also fascinating to me, as it is a culture I have had little exposure to and certainly did not tie to New Zealand. I was particularly interested to see Cliff Curtis (filmography), an actor I remember from several movies. Thing is, he seems to be playing a different ethnicity* in each: in Blow, he’s “Escobar”, in Three Kings, Amir Abdullah, and the like. Curtis must feel more comfortable here in his role as Porourangi; he was born in New Zealand.
Whale Rider received a PG-13 rating, and Roger Ebert had a little something to say about that. In his review, he urged parents to “take the kids,” a suggestion that was soon reprinted in the film’s ads. The MPAA took umbrage, saying the makers shouldn’t encourage kids to go a -13 movie. Ebert rightly noted in his most recent show that he said “take the kids”, not “send” — and a -13 rating for this film was a joke anyway. He’s right: other then one very brief appearance of a hash pipe (which is neither used nor referred to) there is little that even approaches controversial.
* It made me recall a conversation I had with a friend. Her argument: sometimes it seems that Hollywood just seeks out an actor who “looks ethnic.” Perhaps the classic example: Lainie Kazan, native New Yorker who has played Italian, Greek, and Jewish mothers. (She is of Spanish and Russian descent.)