Whale Rider

Another movie about women leaders. Another movie about women being underestimated. Another movie about the gigantic cultural shift taking place. Another movie about Girlism.

I have this little problem. How to explain ... well, to start with I've got pretty good intuition, although that might be an understatement. I have a way of feeling the pulse of the world and I'm not a big snob about capital A Art versus capital P Pop Culture. All the signs are there. In art, in pop, in movies, in music. It's the next big thing. Women taking their place next to men to lead us into a new world. Holy Joan of Arc, is all I can say. If you haven't seen this movie WHALE RIDER I really wish you would. Here's what The New York Times wrote about it:

NEW YORK TIMES
Friday 6 June

MOVIE REVIEW
A Girl Born to Lead, Fighting the Odds
By ELVIS MITCHELL

The stoic mysticism of Niki Caro's cool-handed charmer Whale Rider — in which the young Pai must overcome resistance as she tries to assume her destiny as the leader of a tribe on the New Zealand coast — is wickedly absorbing. Much of the film's power comes from the delicate charisma of Keisha Castle-Hughes, making her acting debut as Pai.

Ms. Castle-Hughes lacks the traditional resources of an actress, and instead communicates her feelings through a wary hesitation. It doesn't matter that her voice makes her sound a little lost, still trying to find her way into a world that disdains her. Her intelligent, dark eyes are so expressive that she has the piquant confidence of a silent-film heroine. Her instinctive underplaying gives Whale Rider an added gravity, with the lush remoteness of the landscape serving as an entrancing contrast to the sugar-rush, you-go-girl empowerment of programmed pandering like "The Lizzie McGuire Movie," whose tweener heroine flails her arms and bats her eyes as if she were sending distress signals. The director demonstrates a class and tact that brand Whale Rider, which opens today in New York and Los Angeles, as more than a time-filler for young moviegoers or an ironman competition for adults accompanying them.

Pai's natural rectitude — the way she plays both pride and hurt — is even used by Ms. Caro as a hereditary trait. Pai's prickly grandfather Koro (Rawiri Paratene) displays a contempt for her that is like a deadpan force of nature itself. Koro, the tribal chief, wanted a grandson to take on his mantle. But Pai's twin brother died in a difficult birth, which also took her mother's life, and her father, Porourangi (Cliff Curtis), has deserted the family for a career as an artist. Koro treats his granddaughter as the living embodiment of a curse. When he bothers to pay attention to her at all, it's through a sharp cutting of his eyes in her direction.

Tradition dictates that the first-born grandson step into the role of chief, but Pai — named Paikea by her father, after the tribe's ancient ancestor, who legend says arrived in the village on the back of a whale — is all the family has. Her patient grandmother Nanny Flowers (Vicky Haughton) encourages Pai to give things time; Nanny Flowers also refuses to crumple under the galling chauvinism of her husband. But Pai has endured the suffering for all of her 12 years. And though she has a plucky physical assurance — the firm hand of her grandmother has helped keep her demeanor strong — she still wants the nurturing she feels is her due.

Ms. Caro treats the material with the calm of a silent film and exploits the extravagant beauty of the location for its majesty. Each shot of the vistas in the breathtakingly lovely village is presented with an even clarity; Ms. Caro and her cinematographer, Leon Narbey, let the audience be seduced by the daunting power, rather than overwhelming viewers with it. With a deft hand, the director bridges the disconnect between the modern touches in the village — like the hilarious, cranky chatter over card games — and the determination to cling to traditions. It is evident that tradition is the way the Whangara tribe maintains its spirituality, which defines it.

The critical moment comes in a set piece that has the potential to send the film off into florid, find-your-bliss sentimentality: a whale cruises too close to the shoreline and needs to be steered back into deeper, life-sustaining waters. Ms. Caro refuses to over saturate the film with anxious hyperdramatics. It is a moment in which she must show that she trusts her young star, a faith that pays off with a disarmingly touching climax.

But you will have surrendered to Whale Rider long before then. The film shows strength by tightening the rhythms of the scenes; be warned that the longueurs that surface in the first 10 minutes or so may make demands on your patience. Ms. Caro and her editor, David Coulson, obviously wanted to dissipate any feeling of forced pathos that might accompany the intense tragedy experienced by Pai's family. It's a welcome exercise of taste on the director's part.

Mr. Curtis's total immersion in the role of Pai's father rescues him from the typecasting of his previous work — playing dark-skinned bad guys of indeterminate ethnicity. His excitement alone adds a charge to the picture.

Ms. Caro's attempt to fight the mawkishness inherent in the film's opening by setting a tone of emotional tidiness makes the rest of Whale Rider distinctively efficient; this gamble makes the first section seem distended and a little drab. Still, there aren't many filmmakers who would have fought that initial heightening of heartbreak. Too flamboyant an opening would have left the movie with no place to go and embarrassed us with so early a claim on our sentiments. Bear with Whale Rider: once the picture kicks into gear, it has the inspiring resonance of found art.