For most of the movie I think she attempts to become as tough as the young males are supposed to be - though the movie is interesting in its protrayal of the young Maori boys, in that many of them are not the aggressive macho types that the grnad father is looking for; the ending though...it seems to me that her efforts to save the whales (and by extension her own community, or at least her grnadfathers view of her own community) at the end was a transformative act - demonstrating willingness to sacrifice yourself while saving others, without in the process having to hurt, maim or kill as a means to assuming leadership..reasonably transformative, I would think....though the image of sacrifice touches on another image of women as those more prepared to sacrifice for their families etc...
Commenting by HaloScan.com
