Backbencher

This weekend I was able to watch the movie "Whale Rider." The movie takes place in New Zealand with a Maori family that has been part of a long line of chiefs. The story begins with the birth of the movie's main character Paikea Apriana. She was one of two children born that day, but her brother and her mother did not survive. Her grandfather then enters to see if there was a son, to extend the line of chiefs. He finds that the only child to survive was a daughter. It took Koro a long time to come to terms with this. Even when Pai's father was choosing a name for her he named her after the whale rider Paikea. It is told that their ancestors arrived in from Hawaiiki on a whale's back. In light of the fact that Pai was female, Koro had to train Maori boys to become chief. Everything seemed in order until it came to the final test, when one of them was unable to return the whale tooth from the depths of the ocean. After this happened Koro became very depressed and laid in bed for days. While this is taking place Pai is able to retrieve the tooth from the ocean floor. It was a day or so later that there was a concert at Pai's school, and the end of it had her giving a speech about where their ancestors came from. Pai dedicated it to Koro who failed to attend, and for ample reason. Koro stumbled onto the beach to find that a family of whales had been beached. They noticed that one was close to being swept up in the tide and returned to sea, so a group tried to spin the whale to get it into the water, but they failed. It was at this point that Pai goes down to the whale and gets on its back. The whale then started to kick itself back into the ocean. The movie ends with Koro finally being able to acknowledge that his granddaughter was likely to be the next chief. I thought this movie was pretty good, but it would probably have meant a lot more if I was Maori. There were strong cultural ties in the movie probably preserving tradition and heritage to people that have the strongest ties to the land.