Aloha, Moon Yun signing in from Hawaii…

I got to see a free public screening of SYLVIA recently at the Art House at Restaurant Row in Honolulu. It’s supposed to be a movie about the grand love affair of fame poets Sylvia Plath (Gwyneth Paltrow) and her husband Ted Hughes (Daniel Craig). It bothered me that this movie struck me as more a murder mystery than a suicide story of Plath.

I had read “The Bell Jar” many, many years ago, and although I don’t remember much about the book, I recall being disappointed that it didn’t help me to understand more about death and suicide.

Judging by just what the movie presented me about her life… it seemed strange that a woman who had called a doctor for help because she’s loosing it and then is shown with a bottle of white pills, which looks to me like anti-depressants unless I’m mistaking them for sleeping pills, would commit suicide. She had also come to the realization that she had driven her husband to the arms of another woman with her jealousy and fear of losing him. She beckons him back only to be disappointed that he won’t leave the other woman and go back to her because his mistress is pregnant. Then the movie proceeds to show how Plath killed herself by gassing herself in the oven.

And it was strange how when the medics were carrying her body out of the apartment that they had covered the body with a red blanket. When do they ever use red blankets to carry out corpses?

I had read that the filmmakers wanted to show the two sides of a coin in this relationship and not crucify her husband for her subsequent suicide but I felt that as her husband he had failed to protect her from the arrows of hurt that could have only been hurled at by another.

For me, this bio-pic raised more questions about Plath than it answered them. Perhaps it is because death is always and finally a mystery, one which refuses to be captured and used. OK. I stole that phrase from Rev. Mistuo Aoki’s website: www.livingyourdying.com

To add to my suspicion, I found a chapter in “Writing Down the Bones” by Natalie Goldberg on “We Are Not The Poem.” In it, she writes: Sometimes when I read poems at a reading to strangers, I realize they think those poems are me. They are not me, even if I speak in the “I” person. They were my thoughts and my hand and the space and the emotions at that time of writing.

While I was waiting for the movie to start, I found a flyer for Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt Present THE ANIMATION SHOW. Their set of animation shorts will be playing Hawaii Dec. 5 – 17. (For complete listing of national engagements, the latest regional theater listings, and complete film information, go to www.animationshow.com)

Looks like they got some real cool animation. The program lists: WELCOME TO THE SHOW, STRANGE INVADER (2001) – 2002 Academy Award Nominee, MT. HEAD (ATAMA YAMA) 2003 Academy Award Nominee, MARS AND BEYOND, IDENT, THE CATHEDRAL (KATEDRA) 2003 Academy Award Nominee, INTERMISSION IN THE THIRD DIMENSION, LA COURSE A L’ABIME, PARKING, 50 PERCENT GREY – 2002 Academy Award Nominee, EARLY PENCIL TESTS AND OTHER EXPERIMENTS, REJECTED – 2001 Academy Award Nominee, DAS RAD (THE ROCKS) – 2003 Academy Award Nominee, and THE END OF THE SHOW. Plus the flyer promises additional films and surprises.

Now I’d really like to add another writer to the Pacific Islands section, especially one who can write about animation. Even though I grew up watching Japanese animation on local TV (my favorite being CANDY, CANDY), I don’t watch enough animation these days to be able to properly review it.

I knew I had to hand this over to someone based locally when I said in one of my last HIFF reports that SUGAR RAID, an animation about mutants battling over the best M & M’s after a nuclear holocaust isn’t a kid appropriate topic because kids should broach on more innocent topics while they’re still kids. I was told later that the principal director, Violet Murakami, is way past kid age. Oh. Gee, when the filmmakers lined up on stage for the audience Q & A during the Hawaii International Film Festival, I saw this small Japanese girl who was representing SUGAR RAID and I assumed she was the main animator. Oh well.

Also, according to the HIFF press release, Chris Lee, Chairman of the University of Hawaii Academy for Creative Media discussed technical film production and collegiate film programs with the Shanghai Film delegation during the fest. The delegation was particularly interested in Hawaii’s digital film technology and visited a local company, Sprite Entertainment, formed from staff from Square USA [animators of FINAL FANTASY]. Discussions might lead to Hawaii film and digital animation work.

So when work starts to come out of that endeavor, I’d like someone knowledgeable enough to review it. If you’d like to help me out, e-mail me at moonyunchoi@aintitcoolmail.com

Before I start my report on windup of the 2003 Hawaii International Film Festival, I’d like to make a correction to one of my previous reports. I incorrectly quoted Sherrie Robertson of SYMPHONY FOR ONE as having said she was selected into the prestigious Sundance Filmmaker Lab when in fact she is a FINALIST to be selected.

It’s fitting that James MacArthur, who played Danno in the HAWAII FIVE-O series, was honored with the Film in Hawaii Award for his contribution in promoting Hawaii and the local film industry. Even when I was traveling through Europe as a college student, I met Australian backpackers who would go “da, da, da, da, da, daaa” when I said I was from Hawaii.

It’s a fitting tribute because one of the Cinema No Ka Oi (Hawaii movies) segment was Five-0 2.0. Now there were two detective shorts with similar names and plot so I hope I don’t mix them up. One was good; the other was, well…it needed better lighting. The one that was good is, I believe, MEGAN HILL IS MISSING, directed and written by Kyle Kakuno. It’s about a detective who goes searching for a missing girl named Megan Hill. We find out that, at a vulnerable stage in her life, the teenager got lured into a prostitution ring. A pretty blond girl, Megan strikes up a conversation with a sympathetic female stranger at a shopping mall. Megan hangs with her not knowing the stranger is a prostitute who had spotted Megan a mile away as the next girl to bring home to her pimp. Eventually the detective tracks her down but she’s been brainwashed into thinking that the pimp really loves her. When the other prostitute shows her the bruises from the beating she got from her pimp for holding out on money she had made, Megan begins to see the light. Her distraught parents are relieved to find their daughter safe. The detective was able to find her before she became a full fledged prostitute. For a film that must have had a limited budget, the film was well made. It was commissioned by the Hawaii State Department of Education. My only problem with the film was that the kids got to stay out for days at a time without the parents knowing where their kids are. The parents explained to the detective that Megan would stay over at her friend’s house for da! ys at a time and sometimes would call home, sometimes not. Now I say if your teenage daughter is out running around town for days at a time and she ends up a hooker on some alley way, what do the parents expect?

The other crime flick that really could have used better lighting was FINDING ALICIA MACKENZIE. It’s also about a missing girl and a guy named Jimbo Welles. It was hard to tell if he was a cop or a hired strong arm for the mob. Jimbo searches for the missing daughter of his mob-turned-lawyer boss. Only for this story, the girl mysteriously appears in Jimbo’s apartment, and yes, from what I remember of the film, she’s yet another one that stays out for days at a time. Instead of prostitution, this girl just so happened to have met a boy. The reason she hasn’t come home is that some guy took her necklace, the one her dad gave her. Jimbo promises to find her necklace so she can go home. In the meantime, he confides to his court-appointed shrink about his “case.” Turns out the shrink kidnaps the daughter and demands a hefty ransom from the father. In the end, Jimbo finds the kidnapper, saves the d! aughter and finds her necklace. The 26-minute short was practically all done (directing, producing, writing and filming) by Chesley Cannon.

KISSING GOD was a really good. The 11-minute short was directed, produced and written by Ron Patricio. The cinematography is by Vince Lucera. It had a gritty look to it at the beginning part of the film. It’s about a boy who has a father he’s ashamed of. The father looks like a hippy. He wears a psychedelic tie-dye shirt and has long, grimy blond hair. The parental ritual of driving their kids to school is usually a cherished one. However, the kid wishes his father would drop him off a block before they hit the school. His classmates tease him about his father’s funny looking car. We don’t know what the father does for a living until we see him rob a convenience store. The sad thing was that the boy had to witness his father being gunned down by police during his botched robbery. Next we see the boy as an adult driving his daughter to his ex-wife’s place. This time, the parent-kid relationship! is a loving one but the now grown-up boy’s sin that had been passed on to him by his father is in the form of being jobless and a surf bum.

Going back to my plant/flower metaphor, I’d give the Five-0 2.0 a red hibiscus, just like the one the lady was wearing on her ear in the opening of HAWAII FIVE-O. Hey wasn’t there going to be a movie made about that series? I’d like to see them cast Keanu Reeves as Steve McGarrett, or at least one of the detectives, even if he may not be appropriate for the film. I’d just like the chance to meet the actor and go “whoa.”

The last set of the Cinema No Ka Oi section is Sea of Islands. A LEGACY is about a Samoan woman growing up in an abusive household. I find this topic interesting because the stereotype of Samoans in Hawaii is that the men beat up their women and anytime you want to get someone beat up, you call a Samoan. When I was a copy girl (gopher) at a local newspaper many years ago, the Associated Press bureau was located in the same building. I remember the then Bureau Chief liked to go to Samoa often. I asked him once if it’s true that Samoans beat up their wives. From his experience, he said, “No.” And that you hear stuff about the men drinking and hitting women but it’s not like it’s rampant. Also, I recently met a couple of fellow returned Peace Co! rps volunteers who had served in Samoa. Their recollection of their PC experience was that of sitting down with the family, conversing, eating and drinking kava. But I guess the issue of domestic violence is a universal one and the Samoan cultural aspect of it is a nice background to illustrate the point. The 10-minute short was directed and co-produced by Mane. The cinematography is by Dustin Cross.

By the time I was going through these last set of Hawaii-produced films, I was getting tired of the “the white man raped our land” theme. But then I saw CRY FOR THE GODS. For a small production, it had big impact. The lead actress is Donalyn DelaCruz, a local TV reporter. A 12-minute short with no dialogue, CRY FOR THE GODS starts off with an island girl (DelaCruz) watching a European ship sail toward the island. The time period, excuse my history, looks to be around the 1700’s, the start of the European colonialism of the Pacific islands. One of the shipmates shows the island girl a product from the West, a knife with a sharp blade. Then he tries to rape her only to be stopped by a higher ranking shipmate or captain. (It was kind of hard to tell which so I’ll just say captain for convenience). The captain places a finger to his mouth and goes “ssshhhhhh” to the startled girl. In the end, the colonialists are driven out of the island by the natives. Before they can go back to the main ship and tell everybody what had happened to them, the island girl, in referring to the knife, goes “sssshhhhh” back to the captain. Brandon Dumbo is the director, co-writer and cinematographer. Nicole Tessier is the producer and John Huynh is the co-producer.

When I saw the poster for SILENT INFILTRATION, I was intrigued by the story because the poster said something about “who am I” and “where do I fit as a Polynesian in a Caucasian society.” So I thought the 10-minute short was going to be about that. What I saw was completely different (unless I had a brain drain and confused this poster with another film). It’s about a Pacific Islander spy trying to get out of the business. In the end, he manages to knock off those trying to kill him. He finds a more peaceful way of life when we see him at the end meeting a girl on the beach and walking away with her with a surfboard in hand. Siana Burgess is the director, producer, screenwriter, and cinematographer.

THE RED HIBISCUS was done by the same filmmaker that I had given the bonsai tree to for his documentary LIVING YOUR DYING. The filmmaker is Robert Pennybacker, who directed, produced and wrote the 8-minute short. The cinematographers were Ken Libby and Ward Kahekili Bray. It’s about a Honolulu private eye going through Chinatown to try to close the book on a 1950s song stress’s fate. It was interesting to note that during the Q & A, Pennybacker said he liked the idea of showing a film about Hawaii before and around the time of Statehood, not because he’s opposed to it, but because he recognizes that some of Hawaii’s innocence has been lost. You can check out his site at www.pennybackercreative.com.

I made it a point to go see KAVA KULTCHA because I had met the filmmaker about a year ago. At that time she was applying for a grant to make a film about a futuristic society. We were able to easily strike up a conversation because we had both gone to USC. She was in the film school; I a French major. We talked about how at first we had such a hard time adjusting to USC and Los Angeles and now being back in Hawaii how cool that place really was. Not having seen any of her work, I was curious to see what the HIFF 2002 Hawaii Filmmaker Award winnerhad done with KAVA KULTCHA. The 12-minute short left me a little ambivalent. So I asked Leah, the director and co-producer, about the concept behind the short film.

AICN: For someone who’s not native Hawaiian, or who wasn’t raised here, or isn’t really into Hawaiiana, how would that person be able to relate to the story?

LK: I think the story is basically a good vs. evil so I don’t think you have to be native Hawaiian (to appreciate the story). Anyone who can appreciate culture or freedom of expression can appreciate the piece because it is about suppression and domination. It doesn’t necessarily have to be about just culture. It could be about any kind of form that we’re talking about.

AICN: How did you get the idea for this short? (Set in 2012, it portrays a world where one culture dominates. Facing tyranny, an underground group of Polynesians continue their culture—kava drinking—in secret).

LK: The idea came to me from a playwright (named) Misa Tupou (who) based it on a cock fight and a similar situation happened where someone was arrested at a cock fight and when asked if they would stop, they said, “How can I stop? This is my culture.” What we wanted to do was translate it to something that was closer to us. The symbol we used was kava.

I would give the Sea of the Islands section a Ti leaf. Green in color, this plant was brought to the islands by the Polynesians for good luck.

Now a talkbacker wrote that while he appreciates Asian empowerment, he found the films in the Cinema No Ka Oi to be as bland as white bread. Although there were a few standout films, after a while they tended to blur. When I was watching Bravo’s The Actor Studio, they had a guest actor making a rare appearance. I don’t know the person so I’ll just say he’s practically a demi-god in the acting world. One advice that stuck in my mind was when he said to the students that at this stage of the game, you got nothing to lose so make your stories personal and that way your film will be unique. I don’t know if that will help but maybe it’ll set you in the right direction.

Mahalo, Moon Yun signing out…

moonyunchoi@aintitcoolmail.com