Forefather Envy

The longing for father-love that fuels Whale Rider connects it to other recent teen films — the Dardenne brothers’ The Son; Pete Sollett’s Raising Victor Vargas; Lukas Moodysson’s Lilya 4-Ever. Whale Rider offers the catharsis that is often so elusive in real life. When children look into their parents’ eyes, they hope to see themselves reflected back, wrapped in love and security. If they don’t, all manner of damage is done. So much of the rage that permeates not only American culture — from the syncopated anger of hip-hop to the thin-lipped fury of Fox News anchors, to our fearless leader in the White House — but the world at large, can be traced to daddy issues, the desire to find him, to curse, emulate or avenge him, to win his approval. When I saw the film earlier this year at the San Francisco International Film Festival, the audience laughed in all the right places, but more importantly, they didn’t laugh in the wrong places. Today’s film audiences seem increasingly to use laughter, whether nervous or superior, to distance themselves from their own more complicated or emotional responses to film. Whale Rider plows right through that hipster/detached pose. In a crowd filled with punks of all ages, senior citizens, studied bohemians and assorted other citizenry, shared sniffles filled the auditorium from a group of people responding not just as spectators or pop-culture consumers, but as community.

WHALE RIDER | Written and directed by NIKI CARO, based on the novel by WITI IHIMAERA | Produced by TIM SANDERS, JOHN BARNETT and FRANK HUBNER | Released by Newmarket Films | At selected theaters