WAIKIKI MOURNS THE LIVES OF MANY NATIVE HAWAIIANS
Christopher Kahunahana, the first Native Hawaiian to direct a film, has decided to portray how some people occupying islands for more than a thousand years now feel strangers in their own land. The focus is on Kea (played by Danielle Zalopany), who is employed as a hula dancer for tourists, nightclub hostess and singer, as well as a Hawaiian language schoolteacher. She has left her husband Branden (Jason Quinn), evidently because he disapproves her singing for a “slut bar” and thereby abandoned duties as mother of their child; she shuns his later apology, reinforcing the view that he is an abusive husband. At first, she is living in a van owned by her husband, but one night her van runs into a homeless Japanese named Wo (Peter Shinkoda); she then decides to adopt him as her almost mute companion. Another night, while working, the van is parked in a location too long, confiscated by the county, and she joins his homelessness.
Why Kea would allow her life to deteriorate becomes the main puzzle of the film. One explanation is provided by flashbacks of how she was raised by a Native Hawaiian grandmother to respect the values of Aloha. Another is her belief, as stated while teaching, that maintaining land is perhaps the most important duty of humans because people cannot exist without proper care of land. After being cruised by five males in a restaurant, she shuns them by demanding that they show Aloha. Although some lush portions of the Islands are included in the film’s cinematography, most filming focuses on parts of the Islands that are cemented, in construction, or consist of storefronts of expensive shops along the main avenue in Waikīkī (the proper spelling for some reason not included in the formal title).
Waikiki, which begins by classifying itself as a “Fourth World” film, is therefore one of the saddest ever made. MH