29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"What Did You Think Salvation Would Look Like?" ~ Tale From The Navel Of The World, August 21, 2005
Mythic tale of what life might have been like for the inhabitants of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) long before the coming of the white man. 'Rapa Nui' means, "navel of the world," a concept found at the basis of every archaic, shamanistic based society. Rapa Nui is a tale of young love fighting against the political, religious and social constraints of life at "the center." (SPOILER ALERT!) Noro (Jason Scott Lee) is a long-ear, a member of the tribal upperclass and the Grandson of the tribal chief. He is in love with Ramana (Sandrine Holt), a short-ear and member of the lowerclass of laborers responsible for the carving of the monolithic statues required by the religious elite.
The chief agrees to let his grandson break the taboo and marry his true love if he enters and wins a yearly intertribal competition which would bestow upon the chief the coveted "Birdman' title for the eighteenth time. It's a dangerous endeavor and he would be competing against many who would do whatever it takes to win. He will also be competing against Make (Esai Morales) his childhood friend who must win, or die. He agrees to his Grandfather's conditions and enters the race. Thus the adventure begins.
While the great day of competition approaches the aging, mentally degenerating chief dreams of a destiny of sailing away on the great white spirit canoe to the "Home of the Gods." When a giant iceberg appears in the bay at the very moment the competition ends he believes his day has arrived and has his warriors canoe him out to the ice block. As he floats away to his death he calls out to those who refused to join him, "What did you think salvation would look like?
Wonderful movie that is virtually unknown in the U.S.A., and is only available in a all-region import edition. 'Rapa Nui' has a great cast: Jason Lee Scott, Sandrine Holt (Black Robe), Esai Morales, Anzac Wallace (Utu), Rena Owen (Once Were Warriors) and Cliff Curtis (Whale Rider and Once Were Warriors) are all accomplished actors who have specialized in roles dealing with indigenous cultures. The import disc is great, don't bother to wait for the region 1!
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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Easter Island, August 19, 2001
I spent a year on Easter Island (Rapa Nui)in service to the United States. The people were very friendly and willing to talk about their island. The movie was relatively accurate concerning their past, including the cannibalism. If you lived on an island that is roughly 9 by 16 miles and that island had been deciminated by ecological ignorance, cannibalism might seem like a good idea at some point. It was not a continuing thing. The movie was Hollywoodized for entertainment purposes but was well done and the scenery was very familiar. There were two distinct races and they were the long ears and the short ears. Generally archeologist feel that one race was Polynesian and the other was South American indian. The long ears were generally exterminated in the civil war. Places were accurately named. The statues were carved on the sides of Rana Raraku(S?) and the bird men spent much of their time on the larger volcano called Rana Kao(S?) Once a year the stalwarts of the island did race to "Bird Man's Island" to bring back an egg. I believe it was for the glory and special treatment the winner recieved for the following year. I enjoyed the movie thoroughly.-----PJ
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Rapa Nui - very good, June 14, 1998
By A Customer
I'm becoming a Kevin Reynolds fan. The Beast is his 1988 war epic, beautifully done and under appreciated. Rapa Nui is in that league, an epic story set on Easter Island, isle of the gigantic stone statues. The premise is simple: There are two groups on the island: the dominant Long-Ears, and the subervient Short-Ears. The former have the latter carving out the huge stone statues, to assuage the gods, and to preserve the tenuous balance of life on the island. Jason Scott Lee is the grandson of the ailing leader of the Long-Ears, and is the ostensible candidate to replace him. Before any change in leadership can occur, one man from each Long-Ear tribe has to compete in a swimming race to capture and retrieve the eggs from an actic tern's nest, situated on a small island offshore. What makes Rapa Nui so gripping is its completeness in its depiction of life on that Island. It's clear that Reynolds and Tim Rose Price read Thor Heyerdahl's exhaustive study of the island. The writing isn't the greatest, but the movie moves along, with a great Steward Copeland score set to lush cinematography. Rapa Nui works as an adventure story, a romance, and a sly attack on government by theocracy. Definitely worth renting. END
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