Top 20 films of 2002

Keisha Castle-Hughes and Rawiri Paratene shine in Whale Rider. Picture / Brett Phibbs

After long arguments and the occasional agreement, Herald reviewers PETER CALDER and RUSSELL BAILLIE finally came up with a list of the 20 best flicks of 2002.

1. Whale Rider

Yes, it's cheating to include this, as it's not officially out until January 30, but would you rather be told about all the great films you missed or told about the one film you should see in 2003?

We've been lucky enough to see it already. We haven't quite recovered. We're going again, we suspect we will love it even more second-time round.

To say director-writer Niki Caro's adaptation of Witi Ihimaera's novel packs a bit of an emotional wallop is an understatement; there are parts of Whale Rider which dance a haka on your tear ducts.

That's all because of Caro's gentle way with her story and the devastating lead performances of Keisha Castle-Hughes, as 12-year-old Paikea, and Rawiri Paratene as her grandfather. Both living in an East Coast settlement steeped in the myth of the original Paikea, an ancestor who arrived on the back of a whale, the pair become involved in a kind of battle of wills about the leadership of their tribe.

The result is magical and resonates far beyond its specific location - the audience at this year's Toronto Film Festival thought so when they voted it best movie of the acclaimed North American festival against some heavyweight competition. About now, Caro is readying to go to the Sundance Film Festival where it will undoubtedly pick up more international momentum.

Yes, for most of us Whale Rider will be a movie of 2003 and we're picking it's going to be our defining film of the New Year. But, hey, its story starts in 2002 and this film about a New Zealand myth may well become an international legend. - RB

2. Y Tu Mama Tambien

A sexy and sweetly melancholic road movie, more widely seen because a morals group tried to have it banned, this story of two Mexican teenagers and a lustrous but ill-used married woman was indisputably explicit but the film was more interested in exploring the characters' internal lives.

The central trio's performances were unaffected and courageous and the film was more complex and interesting than the male fantasy its bare story outline might suggest. - PC

3. Yi Yi (A One And A Two ... )

Taiwanese director Edward Yang's beautifully observed drama was full of quietly wrenching moments, a depiction of a superficially contented Taipei family which was culturally specific but transcendentally universal. Deftly and elegantly interlacing various plotlines, Yang created a visually arresting film which aggregated small incidents into a rich and rounded film of profound humanity. -PC