Great Scene: “Whale Rider”

The 2003 movie Whale Rider is a wonderful story, aptly described in this IMDB plot summary:

A contemporary story of love, rejection and triumph as a young Maori girl fights to fulfill a destiny her grandfather refuses to recognize.

The girl in question is Paikea, performed magnificently by Keisha Castle-Hughes in a role for which she was nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award.

In this scene, many threads come together. Pai has invited her grandfather (another great performance by Rawiri Paratene) as her special guest to a school concert, her way of reaching out to him after he has blamed her for much of what has gone wrong with the local community by virtue of Pai’s birth — as a girl, not a boy who could become a tribal leader — and by Pai’s meddling in the ways of training, again in his mind not her place because of her gender. And yet, Pai still loves her grandfather, the current leader of the village, and font of knowledge about the Maori traditions which Pai has soaked up.

The scene begins with an announcement by Pai’s teacher that the young girl won an award for the speech she is about to give. One layer of subtext is that her grandfather is absent, so part of Pai’s emotional state is influenced by her disappointment. But there is so much going on in this scene, it is a remarkable moment… and a stunning performance by such a young actor… with a dramatic cross-cut to the grandfather making a stunning discovery on the beach.

My name is Paikea Apirana. And I come from a long line of chiefs, stretching all the way back to Hawaiiki where our ancient ones are, the ones that first heard the land crying and sent a man. His name was also Paikea and Iam his most recent descendant. But Iwas not the leader my grandfather was expecting and by being born, Ibroke the line back to the ancient ones. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. It just happened. Who is to blame? But we can learn. And if the knowledge is given to everyone, we can have lots of leaders. And soon, everyone will be strong, not just the ones that’ve been chosen. Because sometimes, even if you’re the leader and you need to be strong, you can get tired. Like our ancestor, Paikea, when he was lost at sea and he couldn’t find the land, and he probably wanted to die. But he knew the ancient ones were there for him, so he called out to them to lift him up and give him strength. This is his chant. I dedicate it to my grandfather.

Here is the movie version of the scene:

We need movies like Whale Rider, ones that take us into specific subcultures around the world to educate us about our differences… and remind us of our shared humanity.

Comment Archive

For more articles in the Great Scene series, go here.