Whale Rider
Whales. Maori. Hilarity Ensues
dir: Niki Caro
2003
Whale Rider is certainly a touching, sweet film, but people shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that it’s a children’s movie. It is a story of far greater complexity and depth than what one comes to expect from films that seem to be aimed at the kiddie market.
It’s clear, at least to me that there is much more going on here. As well, dismissing it as a glib post-feminist treatise about how wonderful girl power is would be doing the film a disservice, and would denigrate the work all the people involved put into crafting this little gem of a film. It is not a masterpiece by any estimation. It is however a sweet film about a little girl finding her destiny and teaching an old man that the links between the past, present and future can be strongest in the places we are least able to see.
You have to like a film where an old dog learns new tricks. Too often are we saddled with naïve, self-serving stories about old people whose wisdom and experience exist as a beacon, a lighthouse sanctuary for the young above the treacherous shoals of modern life. From that vantage point they can dish out little slices of pious non sequiturs to the thirsty ears of stupid young people and make audiences go “Awww” as if Forrest Gump’s in the house again. Personally I think it’s bullshit. I’ve known plenty of old people, and for each one that has experienced and tasted life, and actually is wise and able to transfer that wisdom to others, you have hundreds of the aged whose most profound thought is figuring out when to get their colostomy bag emptied. Anyone that’s worked in a hospital or in an old folk’s home knows exactly what I’m talking about.
But the old dog in this film, Koro (played superbly by Rawiri Paratene) is a genuinely wise and venerable elder. That wisdom and experience doesn’t prevent him from acting the stubborn old fool, however, until it’s almost too late to come back. Though gruff and sometimes nasty, at least for myself he never stopped being a sympathetic character. The reason is that his actions are motivated from a sense of the profound importance of his people’s heritage, the all-encompassing nature of the legends of his people, and the dissolution of that validity through two factors: a) the abandonment of the old ways in modern life and b), the lack of an heir to the heritage of their creator, Paikea, from whom the tribal leaders (mythically) descend from. And from whom our main characters descend as well.
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