#whale rider

[twinsunstars]

i watched whale rider for the first time since i found out keisha castle-hughes (who plays emerie) is in it and now i can’t stop imagining a tiny emerie just wandering about curious about life, and it’s what hemlock hears every day since he took her in

[earthseed]

on losing elders

Whale Rider (2002), dir. Niki Caro // Crying In H Mart (2021), Michelle Zauner // Daughters of the Dust (1991), dir. Julie Dash // Muttererde (2018), dir. Jessica Lauren Elizabeth Taylor // The Burial of Kojo (2018), dir. Blitz Bazawule // Crying In H Mart (2021), Michelle Zauner // The Farewell (2019), dir. Lulu Wang // Black Indian (2019), Shonda Buchanan // Bandits (1997), dir. Katja von Garnier

[yuck-pfaugh]

I've seen various thoughts on what P— might stand for — but I find that I shake my head at 'Paige', and I side-eye 'Petra'. Inconceivable to me that a New Zealand writer who grew up as a voracious fiction reader in the '90s, and who was 17/18 in 2002, did not give her awesome GNC main character the name... Paikea.

[nerdywyrds]

My favorite genre of introducing people to my favorite movie:

Friend: "Whale Rider", huh? If someone doesn't ride a whale, I'm going to be extremely disappointed.

[Climax of the movie]

Friend: NOT LIKE THIS. NOT LIKE THIS.

[darth-caillic]

Keisha Castle-Hughes as Paikea "Pai" Apirana in Whale Rider (2002)

Feel free to use these gifs in respectful ways. I needed to practice making gifs and will most likely be using them in my Mar edits. I'm not 100% on the last gif, but the others turned out pretty okay.

[adamwatchesmovies]

Whale Rider (2003)

When a film is described as “inspirational”, that can often actually mean cloying or manipulative. Take away the empowering and uplifting message in Whale Rider, and you’ve still got a great movie, largely thanks to the direction by Niki Caro and lead actress, Keisha Castle-Hughes. This is a story of powerful emotions.

In a small New Zealand village, twelve-year-old Paikea “Pai” Apirana (Castle-Hughes) dreams of becoming her tribe’s chief. Unfortunately, her grandfather, Koro (Rawiri Paratene), will not teach her to lead. Undeterred, she begins training in secret.

Though this is very much a film about the Māori people, it has universal appeal. It’s not an opioid crisis, or their land being taken away by some foreign power that’s caused the island's society’s decay. It isn’t climate change or the new world stamping out tradition that’s causing people to turn away from each other. It’s something deep within, something too deep to clearly define that's causing the edges of this normally tight circle to fray. Pai’s father left his home to pursue an art career in Germany after his wife and son (Pai’s twin brother) died. This left Pai to be trained by a grandfather who loves his family… but is stubbornly upholding traditions that prevent him from showing it. Other families too, have lost something. If someone - a new voice that can give all of these lost souls direction - doesn’t step up and take charge, the great wake (canoe) will never be completed and the damage - regardless of what caused it - done to these people will never heal.

There are two emotions at this film’s core. The first is sadness. Grandfather Koro can be so cruel that in any other movie, you would hate him. Writer/director Niki Caro takes us to a deeper level than that one emotion. We know why he is so unhappy, why he loses hope with each day. The same goes for all of the other fathers we meet. They’re not bad, just lost. It’s a thousand times more painful to see.

The second emotion is a tiny glimmer of hope. You've seen how determined Paikea is to learn even when she's forbidden to do so. You believe she will live up to her namesake, the man who led his people from Hawaiki to New Zealand on the back of a whale. If only she can learn to believe in herself as well. When she speaks up and defies her grandfather, you want her to keep at it but you know how much that's asking, particularly for a child. There’s a moment when she’s at her most vulnerable that comes in and just obliterates you like a sledgehammer hitting a glass cup. Before that scene, Keisha Castle-Hughes was so convincing in the role, that you just saw her as a person who might’ve been cast because this tale is semi-autobiographical or something. Suddenly, you realize this is something different. She’s good like you never knew a kid that age could be.

Whale Rider is the kind of movie you hold onto tightly. No matter how old you are, now is the right time to meet these characters and hear their story. The performances are spectacular and the emotions are so strong they’ll be as clear as the first time you felt them long after the credits are done. Everyone should see Whale Rider at least once. (October 1, 2021)

[shinycupcakebaker]

Comfort Movies

I was tagged by @joi-in-the-tardis Thank you friend!! Miss you!

Rules: List 7 comfort movies, and tag 7 people

Black Widow

The Eternals

The Greatest Showman

A League of their Own

Newsies

Tangled

Down with Love

Honorable Mentions:

Avatar

Pacific Rim 1 & 2

Whale Rider

Tagging: @greymichaela @spectorbarnes @skyler10fic @itsanerdlife

I really don’t know anyone else.. :/

[erstwhile-punk-guerito]

[apatheticlexicographer]

do you ever just rewatch a movie u love and then go online to see if anybody else Appreciates it like u and then remember that it's not very well known internationally and also ppl without cultural context have some of the most braindead and unintentionally offensive takes imaginable and there isn't even a cute little fandom to hide in bc there's no homoerotic subtext

:///

[kidd-penn]

[heartbreakfeelsgoodinablog]

In the ways of the ancients she found a hope for the future.

[atomicseasoning]

Moana 2 and Keisha Castle-Hughes?

[apollowatchesmovies]

January 13

Movie 6

Whale Rider

[sunlit-music]

I watched Whale Rider (2002)!! It was really good!

No, you're not getting an essay from me. I just really loved the cinematography, acting, story and characters. The characters are realistic and nuanced. I like that the grandfather eventually changed his mind and accepted his granddaughter becoming a leader of the tribe. Go watch!!

[spryfilm]

Blu-ray review: "Whale Rider" (2002)

Blu-ray review: “Whale Rider” (2002)

[saturnniidae]

Thinking about how the dragons canonically help with fishing by kind of herding them to the nets but like imagine what that'd mean for whaling and hunting.

Like during that rob/dob era adjustment period, everyone's excited about the increase in food due to the raids ending and dragons now assisting them, but imagine one day one of them (Hookfang) just. Brings back a whole whale to try and one-up the other dragons.

But of course, they can't have that so then the others start doing it as well (some even getting confused and bringing back sharks instead). Too often, actually. Berk's store houses are, for the first time in recent history, almost overflowing with cured meats and the like. They're set for the winter, and its left to poor Hiccup to try and reign it in so the local whale, shark and seabird populations aren't completely devastated.