officially the first self-produced, self-distributed Hawaiian independent film ever made. didn't make it further than to the Seattle and then the Philadelphia film festival unfortunately.

it's a mixture of poetic realism, misery porn and dark lynchian floatiness but is also extremely flawed, especially with pacing and focus. slow burn cinema at best, but don't expect the burn to sting very deep.

big up for the Cameron Crowe / Bradley Cooper diss at the q&a (for trademarking the name "Aloha" for their shitty film) !

The first film written and directed by a Native Hawaiian is one that doesn’t hold back in its dismantling of the “Honolulu is Paradise” narrative.  The way Christopher Kahunahana embodies intergenerational trauma and the devastation of colonization is overwhelming in its viscerality. 

Kea is a character that so easily can be dismissed as unsympathetic or cruel, but with the greater scope of the way Native Hawaiians have been treated on their own land taken into consideration, her flaws make much greater sense and impact. 

While the story isn’t arguably as tight as I’d often like to see, the emotion, so tangible you can feel it creeping its way into your chest, more than makes up for any shortcomings the work may have. 

SIFF 2021 Watch #22 

2021 Ranked

Emang gw nya yang ga paham sih kayanya sama ni film. Gatau dah 🤣🤣

Why?

"magical waikiki" to the white tourists who watch hawaiian women dance for them.

but waikiki shows us all the ways colonialism has hurt us in the realities that have slipped through the cracks both systemically and literally with settle expansion projects.

it was extremely difficult but also felt very seen to see ptsd/dissociative/psychosis displayed in such a way on film.

some parts felt like a daydream and others like confusing reality.

to edit l8r!!

A film with a lot of potential, that is telling the right *kind* of story, just not made as well as it needs to be. Really thoughtful and earnest exploration of lots of issues painfully relevant to modern day Hawaii- particularly the homeless and how they are seen and treated by the ruling class. Simply lacks the tact and vigor that would have elevated it beyond just a group of good ideas, relying on some lazy storytelling shorthand and shortcutting its emotional beats.

the kānaka maoli are yet another disenfranchised indigenous community fucked over by colonialism. hawaii is consistently portrayed and marketed as this flawless, glamourised paradise, and despite it being a white anglo-saxon protestant’s holiday wet dream, tourism and its imperialist history has contributed to unprecedented levels of gentrification that push their own people out of their land. according to christopher kahunahana, the tourism industry of hawaii had actually tried to stop him from naming this film ‘waikiki’ due to fearing it would tarnish its name and popularity as a destination. yet the portrayal of displacement, discrimination, and collective trauma as a community powerfully shatter that picture perfect pretence of a paradisiacal holiday destination, the image used to exploit the islands and its people.
 
i really hope indigenous filmmakers will be given all the opportunities they deserve to create, raise awareness, and be celebrated.

Just because you’re vaccinated does NOT mean you can drive around Waikiki with a ghost corpse hallucination that represents the decay of the land on which you live.

there's just so little to hold on to

Bummed this didn't work for me, because there's so much potential.