Whale Rider

Friday, August 12th 2005 at Creek Park in San Anselmo

Showtime: 8:30 PM

Sponsored by Cagwin & Dorward

Niki Caro, 2003 Niki Caro's touching feminist parable, based on Witi Ihimaera's novel, recasts a thousand-year-old legend in a contemporary light and offers a beautifully framed picture window onto a virtually hidden culture. The setting is Whangara, a remote village on the coast of New Zealand's North Island, where the indigenous Maori people lay claim to a fabulous provenance. According to legend, the Ngati Konohi tribe's founder, Paikea, arrived on the back of a tremendous whale. Ever since, each successive generation's first-born son is considered the venerable Paikea's latest incarnation and given his name. This child is expected to fulfill his destiny by becoming the tribe's new leader. But as the film opens, a terrible tragedy occurs: An eagerly awaited male baby and his mother die during childbirth and only the child's twin — a baby girl — miraculously survives. Despite the infant's sex, her bereaved father, Porourangi (Cliff Curtis), names her Paikea. This outrages Porourangi's own father, town elder Koro (Rawiri Paratene), who's entrusted with naming the new leader. Aspiring artist Porourangi soon moves to Paris and leaves his daughter in the care of her disappointed grandfather, who will only call her "Pai," and grandmother Nanny Flowers (Vicky Haughton), who's wise to the sexist ways of the patriarchal culture in which Whangara's women are raised. When Pai (played as a young adult by the wonderful Keisha Castle-Hughes) turns 13, the village is still without a leader. Desperate, Koro begins searching for the next leader among the town's unremarkable adolescent boys, even though it's obvious that Pai is actually his "man." She's not only adept at handling the tiaha, the traditional Maore spear, but it's clear that the headstrong girl is a born rangatira — a leader endowed with all the qualities needed to pull her declining village from its slump. Who's to say that Paikea couldn't be reincarnated as a girl? Koro, for one; he refuses to even consider the matter, even when destiny begins to outweigh the decisions of mere mortal men. This marvelous story both respects the beliefs of a traditional people and points to a middle ground where observing tradition doesn't necessarily mean clinging to outmoded sexism. But what makes Caro's film a future classic is what so many movies geared toward younger audiences lack: a cool and very courageous 'tween heroine whom boys and girls of all ages can admire.  — Ken Fox