1994 Rapa Nui VO Streaming
Rapa-Nui (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rapa-Nui is a 1994 film directed by
Kevin Reynolds and coproduced by
Kevin Costner, who starred in Reynolds's previous film,
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991). The plot is based on
Rapanui legends of
Easter Island,
Chile, in particular the race for the
sooty tern's egg in the
Birdman Cult.
The historic details of this film are questionable, but the central
theme—the destruction of the island's irreplaceable forests—is well
authenticated. The ethnic struggle in the story is derived from the
legend of the
Hanau epe.
Main cast
Plot
There are two classes of people:
Long Ears
and Short Ears. Long Ears, marked by large wooden plugs in their
earlobes and a certain tattoo, are the ruling class. The working-class
Short Ears have no ear plugs and a different tattoo. Young men from each
Long Ear tribe compete in the annual Birdman Competition. The winner’s
tribe gets to rule the island for a year.
Ariki-mau has been the Birdman (Island King) for 20 years. He has a
conviction that one day the gods will arrive in a great white canoe and
take him to heaven. His advisor tells him to build more and bigger
moai
statues to curry favor with the gods and encourage them to come sooner.
Ariki-mau petulantly rejects the latest statue—which stands over 20
feet tall—as too small. The Short Ear workers are forced to build an
even bigger statue in an impossibly short amount of time. The king’s
advisor ruthlessly enforces the rules and status quo by publicly killing
a Short Ear fisherman who had accidentally caught a
taboo fish.
Long Ear Noro (
Jason Scott Lee)
and Ramana, a Short Ear, are both rejects in their tribes—her father
was banished for building an unlucky canoe. Noro’s father stole a canoe
and sailed away and is accused of abandoning the tribe. They have a
secret relationship and have fallen in love.
Ariki-mau tells Noro that he has to compete in the Birdman
Competition so Ariki-mau can continue to rule the island. Noro asks if
he can marry Ramana if he wins the Birdman Competition. The king
reluctantly agrees. The king’s advisor claims that Ramana's skin is too
dark and that she should be purified by spending the time from now until
the Birdman Competition (six months) in the "Virgin’s Cave". He checks
her virginity and snidely remarks to Noro, who is watching Ramana being
lowered to the cave, that she isn’t right for the Virgin’s Cave and that
it will be their secret. Ramana takes one last look at the sunset and
goes into the cave.
Noro approaches Ramana’s banished father, a canoe maker, and asks him
to help him train for the Birdman competition. He initially refuses,
because it is Noro’s fault that his daughter is confined to a cave, but
later relents and trains Noro. While training Noro he explains that he
and Noro's father were great friends once and that he gave the canoe to
Noro's father. He further explains that Noro's father sailed away after
discovering a piece of a shipwrecked Spanish galleon, thus breaking the
long-held belief that Rapa Nui is the only land left with people on the
Earth.
Meanwhile, the Short Ears are beginning to starve because the king
insists on them working on the new statue instead of growing food but
continues taking the full quota of their remaining food for the Long
Ears. The resources of the island are being rapidly used up and depleted
(with the last remaining tree being cut down), due to the extensive
Moai construction and
overpopulation.
Noro is the only person worried about the resource depletion, but his
concerns are dismissed by the increasingly senile Ariki-mau.
Noro sneaks some food to his Short Ear friend Make (Esai Morales) and
shares his plans to marry Ramana. Make reacts badly and Noro realizes
that Make loves her, too. Make declares that they are no longer friends
and runs off. Separately, Noro and Make visit Ramana at her cave,
bringing her food and talking to her through the barrier at the mouth of
the cave. They both declare their love to her. She always responds, but
she sounds despondent.
After a supply shortage results in the death of one of the Short Ears
(Heki, the former master carver), they demand half of the wood, food
and other materials and that they are allowed to compete in the Birdman
Competition. The King's advisor initially refuses and orders their
death. However, the King gives in to their demands after realizing that
if the Short Ears die no one will build the moai. The King, however,
only allows them to compete after the moai has been completed. He makes
the condition that if the Short Ear competitor loses he will be
sacrificed. Despite these conditions Make accepts the position of the
Birdman Competitor on the condition he marries Ramana if he wins. The
King agrees and Make spends all his time working and training, leaving
no time for sleep or other recreational activities. Meanwhile, work on
the great Moai has become so important that the Short Ears sacrifice
their food to complete it.
Finally it is the Birdman Competition. Nine competitors must swim to a
close-by islet surrounded by pounding surf, climb the cliffs to get an
egg from the nest of a sooty tern and bring it back. The first to return
wins for his tribe. Noro barely wins and Ariki-mau gets to be the
island's ruler for another year.
Ramana is brought from the cave, pale from her long underground stay
and very pregnant. Before anything is decided about the fate of Ramana
or Make, an iceberg is spotted off the coast. Ariki-mau believes that
the iceberg is the great white canoe sent to take him to the gods and
goes out to it with some of his followers. After the iceberg has carried
Ariki-mau away, the advisor attempts to seize control of the island,
but Make kills him and the Short Ears stage a rebellion, slaughtering
and even eating the remains of the Long Ears. Noro alone survives, as
Make allows him to live, and Noro, Ramana and their baby escape the
island in a canoe Ramana’s father built.
An after-movie credit states that archaeological evidence proves that
Pitcairn Island was settled some 1,500 miles away, providing hope that Noro, Ramana and their daughter made it to a new land.
Historical accuracy issues
The
film can be considered a condensed history of the collapse of the
Easter Island civilization The struggle between the Long Ears and Short
Ears is derived from the legend of the
hanau epe (long ears), who are supposed to have been almost all killed by the
hanau momoko (short ears), leaving a sole survivor, as in the film.
Interpretations of this story have been made, ranging from a class
struggle, similar to that depicted in the film, to a clash between
migrant peoples, with incomers fighting natives. There is no single
accepted interpretation, and many scholars consider the story to be
either pure myth, or such a garbled version of real events as to be
ultimately indecipherable.
[1] It has been argued that the names mean "stocky" and "slim" peoples, not long- and short-eared ones.
[2]
The deforestation is a fact of the island's history, which seems to
have caused widespread famine due to ecological collapse and a
catastrophic drop in population, accompanied by wars between clans for
control of dwindling resources.
[3]
The plot mixes elements of two periods: the era of the moai and the
later Birdman Cult. If the conflict between the Long Ears and the Short
Ears was real, it was over long before the Birdman Cult began.
The name
Rapa Nui, commonly used, may not have been the original native name; that may have been
Te Pito te Henua ("the Navel of the World"), a phrase used in the film, though there are other possibilities.
[4]
See also
- Collapse by Jared Diamond, which details the historic deforestation of Easter Island along with other accounts of how societies collapse or succeed
États-Unis
Australie : 14 avril 1994 
France : 22 juin 1994, 
États-Unis : 9 septembre 1994
