Backbencher

The movie Whale Rider is directed by Niki Caro. The film begins at a Hospital in New Zealand where a mother is giving birth to twins, a son and a daughter. The little boy, who is supposed to be the next leader of the village, dies at birth with the mother. The daughter Paikea then goes to live with her grandparents and wants to learn the ways of her ancestors to take on the role of being the leader of the village, how ever her grandfather, Koro greatly disapproves of her even trying to learn the ways of her ancestors as a leader. Paikea’s father leaves the village in pursuit of a career in Art in Germany. Because Paikea’s brother dies, her grandfather, who is in control of training the new chief the ways of their ancestors, seeks the young boys of the village and tries to pick the most promising candidate. Paikea was able to accomplish many things these boys could not, like the final test for the boys when Koro throws his whale tooth necklace into the water and tells the boys to retrieve it. Paikea, by herself, also got a beached whale back into the ocean when her entire village could not. Then she rode on the whales back into sea, just like their ancestor that came to New Zealand on the back of a whale.

At the end of the movie, I think Paikea’s grandfather finally accepts the idea of her maybe not being the Chief of the village but very prominent leader. I watched this movie with my parents and they seemed very confused about the Maori culture because there was very little back ground in it.