In the “Making of” segment on the special features of the Whale Rider DVD, the director, Niki Caro, says, “I felt this film needed a documentary level realism in order to succeed.” This was a call to action for me, because while I applaud the sentiment, I find that the director’s choices did not support her statement. Every choice a director makes is a technique, an aspect of formalism. The decision to create a realist film is a formal decision to limit techniques that would draw attention away from the story and toward the film itself. But it is still a technique.

Making a realist film requires directors to be extra conscious of any technique that is not necessary to the story. It is too easy to fall back on formalist techniques to get a point across. It is here that Whale Rider presents an ideal case study. It could have been a great realist film (in the vein of magical realism), but it fell back on tired formalist techniques too often.

Right off the bat, the film incorporates voice-over narration to describe what is happening. While I love the sound of Keisha Castle-Hughes’s voice (as the main character Paikea, or Pai), it distracted from the rather realistic action that was unfolding on screen, that of her being born and her mother and twin brother dying in the process. I’d love it if DVDs had a choice for turning off voice-over. Slower people could opt to turn it on, like subtitles are optional for those who don’t understand the film’s native language.

The voice-over continues as the film transitions to twelve years later (the present) and again offers nothing but an obvious explanation, detracting from the power of her and her grandfather silently riding a bike together. I would have loved seeing rather than hearing an explanation of the transition from the grandfather’s spurning of his new granddaughter at the hospital to the bike ride, and am pretty sure I have enough brain cells left to figure out the details on my own.

The actors had the talent to tell the story through their expressions and actions. Voice-over second guesses that talent, which ultimately is a fault of the director. In addition to the deserved Oscar-nominated acting of Keisha, Rawiri Paratene provided a deep portrayal of Pai’s grandfather Koro, who is caught between the love for his granddaughter and the traditions of his culture. I was surprised by how much younger he seemed on the DVD special feature interviews.

On the DVD, the director also talked about using underwater stock shots of whales as a benefit, while I found it distracting and it took away from the power of the ending. It seemed every time Pai looks at the ocean, shots of whales mixed with the Lisa Gerrard soundtrack would follow, as if they were commercials for a National Geographic special. That does not support the director’s need for realism.

The blatant play for emotion by using technique is highlighted by a sequence where Pai is giving a speech at her school and has invited her grandfather as a special guest but he hasn’t shown up. Her despairing grandfather, concerned about the lack of a male leader, finally decides to get up and attend the event. Sensing that something is wrong, he stops before getting into his car and turns toward the ocean. Queue slow motion and haunting Gerrard music as he walks on the beach.

This scene is followed, thankfully, by one where Pai cries while trying to recite her speech. No music. No slow motion. Just real emotion. This is one of those scenes where if the person sitting next to you doesn’t get misty eyed, they are either an alien, a robot, or a person with a black hole where their heart should be. Keisha earned her Oscar nomination largely through this scene.

The ending would have been much stronger if instead of having Pai tell us through voice-over that she was calling the elders, as was her grandfather, and showing whales swimming to music, the scenes could have played out naturally so that when the whales did beach themselves in mass, it would have had a bigger impact. Instead, the director makes every effort to say, “Hey, viewers, here she is calling out to the whales and here are the whales responding. And for our less bright viewers, here she is telling you that she is calling out to them and that they heard her and will be coming ASAP.”

Despite my feelings about the director’s shortcomings on her decision to make a realist film, Whale Rider is one of the better movies from the year 2002. Its strongest point lies with the actors, all of whom feel as if they have lived their roles. The cinematography is beautiful, but there are some strange editing decisions toward the end and a lack of continuity with rain.

This review is part of Film for the Soul’s Counting Down the Zeroes.