Whale Rider DVD: Review By carl

When I first heard about the New Zealand produced drama Whale Rider, it was it's feminist message that people kept raving about, talking up how the film portrayed a girl deserving of leadership in a film that features neither bikinis nor the usual man hating message preached by most of the extreme feminists. I've got to admit that while the idea of a film preaching genuine equality appealed to me, it still remained a fairly routine concept that I couldn't quite get myself overly hyped for. Still I was actually fortunate enough to see Whale Rider over the past week, and I've got to admit that I was blown away, not because of the feminist message, actually there are no female empowerment themes to be found anywhere in the film, but rather by a film that deals with the growth of a culture, the coming together of old and new ways in order to keep something from the both of them.

The events of Whale Rider revolve around an ancient Maori legend, a legend that tells of a noble young man named Paikea. Paikea came from the old land of Hawaii, but found his destiny fulfilled when his canoe capsized and he rode a whale all the way to the village of Whangara, in New Zealand. This legend has been passed on down the generations, told by fathers to their sons with promises that one day another Whale Rider would come to lead their village. The events of the story take place in present day, the current leader of the village, Koro, is determined to see the new leader in his lifetime, and hopes that his sons children will bring this about. Unfortunately his daughter in law dies after giving birth to twins, a daughter and still born son. Koro is not happy about this, but is less concerned with the death of a daughter in law than he is with the loss of a potential leader, and so his son rebelliously names the daughter Paikea.

Over the years Koro raises Paikea and the two develop a mutual bond of love. It's just unfortunate that deep down inside Koro still blames Paikea for all of the villages problems. Eventually Koro reaches a point where he needs to decide on the next chief, and so sets up a school for all of the first born sons, something which he forbids Paikea from properly taking part in. Mortified by this, and desperate to gain the respect of this man she loves so much, she goes against his instructions, secretly taking the lessons of the school, gradually proving that even as a young girl she is the best qualified to take up the position of leader.

Like I said though, this film is not merely a female empowerment film, Paikea is indeed a girl, but in all other areas the situation with Maori women is not even mentioned. Of far more importance are the aspects of the story dealing with the generational gap that has occurred between these people, indeed all people. This is never better illustrated than in an early scene where Koro is fixing an outboard motor, and uses the rope he is using to illustrate to Paikea what makes a village truly strong. Ironically the rope breaks as he is using it, and so he sets off to fetch another one, while Paikea manages to use some initiative and tie the 2 broken pieces together, then use the rope to get the motor running. Throughout the film this scene is emulated as the village is broken in 2, with the different people being represented by Koro, for the older people who staunchly hold onto the old ways, and Paikea who sees the new possibilities of life.

Koro grows frustrated at the intrusion of new values, he's witnessed his son get fatter as technology has taken away the need for hard work, and has seen changes in the attitudes of his people. Still he wants to preserve these old ways in his school, training the young boys to be better leaders and preserving his way of life in at least one place. However he fails to realize that a broken village is not going to prosper, and eventually will be as useless as a broken rope.

Paikea sees things differently, she sees the possibilities of the new generation and so openly defies Koro, even though she loves him more than anyone in the world. She hates seeing him angry, but realizes that if his school doesn't fail then he will never truly respect her. Even then though, she recognizes the importance of his experience and wisdom, she is under no doubt that people like her grandfather are essential if a village is to survive and so knows that she needs to find a way of tieing the 2 strands together again.

What I liked most about the film though is that it's not a film that tries to get by stylistically. The New Zealand backdrops are a breathtaking site, having a visceral beauty that few countries can match, but this is more to do with the already beautiful nature of the area that the film is shot in, and much less to do with any fancy camera tricks employed in the film. It's cinematography is instead very soft, very down to earth, focusing on the actors, so that the characters take top priority, which makes the entire film feel much less like a film, and much more like a doc*mentary.

It's the same with the soundtrack though. Lisa Gerrard, who composed the films score, went into her equipment and managed to find some native Maori sounds, including the shell horn, and manages to use those to give her score a more natural feel. Again, it's not the usual Hollywood style of soundtrack, which work to force an emotion down your throat, but rather compliments the films doc*mentary nature in order to completely absorb you into the story that the film tells.

As any film fan will tell you though, any film that relies entirely on a realistic feel needs actors to give realistic performances. Thankfully there is a lot of that going on in Whale Rider, with most characters being well played with the requisite feelings being displayed naturally. However there are 3 performances in particular that really make the film. Cliff Curtis (Training Day) plays Paikea's father and manages to be incredible. I've seen him give standard performances as over the top bad guys in a lot of crap before, see Collateral Damage and Six Days Seven Nights as examples, and I admit that I had never thought of him as anything but an over the top actor for mediocre films. However here he gives another performance as sensitive and believable as the one he gave in Once Were Warriors, the only other New Zealand film I've seen and one that deals with the darker side of Whale Rider's themes, back in the early 90's. His interaction with both Paikea and Moro was second to none, subtly underplaying his frustrations with his father, while tempering that with some genuinely resonant scenes with his daughter.

As Koro Rawiri Paratene(Shortland Street-TV) is extremely believable. Again he initially underplays his feelings at the start, showing you just the love the character feels for Paikea with his other feelings of anger being kept bubbling under the surface. However as events move on he turns this on his head, so that he overplays the anger he feels just enough to show the audience what he wants them to see, whilst still simultaneously underplaying the love he still feels, meaning that you have a character who treats his granddaughter badly, but still retains a degree of the audiences sympathy.

However it's newcomer Keisha Castle-Hughes who really impresses in the lead role of Paikea. You know how a persons first film always sucks, and you know how you should always be grateful when a child actor doesn't completely overplay the screaming nature of crying, well forget all of this. Hughes performance is so intensely believable that she managed to get the best actress nomination, a privilege never before offered to a child. However she really does succeed at portraying the characters love and happiness, while never overplaying the tears until toward the end of the film, in a scene that required it because Paikea was completely heart broken by what happened. I just hope that she is able to continue giving performances of this calibre, so that her mere presence will offer a little dignity to Star Wars: Episode III.

The Disk for Whale Rider is good, but still it's not exactly something that I would describe as superb. The extras on display are for the most part extremely good, it's just that there's not really all that many of them on display.

There's a commentary by the films writer/director Niki Caro, which is likely to bore the average person. However for me personally I found her commentary interesting even without jokes being cracked every few minutes, simply because she had such an obvious passion for the material that she made you care about learning more of her thoughts on the films technical achievements, as well it's themes at philosophies that moved her into making this film.

On the Trailers front there's the excellent theatrical trailer, that could really get someone pumped for the film and has been edited well enough to please trailer fans everywhere. There's also a large collection of TV spots on display.

The deleted scenes were also a pleasant surprise, because for once they weren't the traditional boring scenes that were deleted for being boring. Some of them were merely good scenes, but a few were brilliant examples that I would love to see reinserted, none less so than a scene between Koro and his son that helped develop the feelings they shared between each other, how they feel about Paikea, and how they feel about Koro's other son. The optional commentary on the scenes then helps you to understand the reason that each scene was cut.

There are 2 doc*mentaries on the disk, a behind the scenes feature that goes into every aspect of the film, from the casting decisions through to the location of the village and how much support they got from the locals. It includes info on the soundtrack, the novel and like I said it's a very detailed doc*mentary.

The "Te Waka: Building the Canoe" featurette was in comparison not particularly interesting. It shows how they built the war canoe that plays a pivotal role in the films themes. Going into the choosing of materials, the work behind it and everything else, just not in much detail. About as interesting as, well as watching a bunch of people build a canoe.

Finally the Selected tracks from Lisa Gerrard's score and Photo Gallery extras are the usual, included for padding extras that I have never had an interest in viewing.

The film comes on the DVD in the 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen format, and looks absolutely stunning for it. The lack of extras, while irritating, has also enabled the film to be packed onto the DVD with a very high compression level. The beauty of New Zealand now leaps out at you and ocean waters sparkle with breathtaking clarity.

On an audio level the film has been packaged with both English Dolby Digital 5.1, and English Dolby Digital 2.0 transfers, but I'm sorry to say has no DTS sound for those with the equipment to take advantage of. Still the Dolby 5.1 sounds amazing, it's not muffled in any way and simply allows for the emotional score to fill the room, whilst allowing the dialogue to be clear and understandable.

The film is excellent, absolutely first class and one of 2002's best films. Like I said, the disk is good, has a lot of interest held in it's extras and some very good image and sound quality. It's just hard not to wish for a few more of those extras, contained on a second disk so that we could keep the image quality, whilst being given even more to appreciate about the film.