Opinion | How a Hawaiian indie film healed my soul
A view of Kailua, O’ahu through the ocean mist. Photos courtesy of Sean Oketani
On New Year’s Eve I decided to brave torrential downpour and drive to my friend Sam’s house in Kaimukī, O’ahu. I had a flight booked for the following day, and I knew I needed to see her before I left for Orange — rain or shine.
We sat in my car, which was parked in Sam’s driveway, and talked over the ambient sounds of illegal fireworks and heavy rainfall. After a brief catch-up with each other, we started talking about the films and TV shows we recently watched and how we wished there was better representation of Hawaiian culture in the media.
This conversation turned into an hour-and-a-half-long discussion of generational poverty and trauma within the Hawaiian community, colonialism, and cultural appropriation — during which I was reminded just how desperately Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) deserve better representation.
Sean Oketani, TV writing and production major
The following week, after flying back to Southern California, I came across an Instagram page for an upcoming independent feature set in O’ahu from Alika Tengan, a native Hawaiian filmmaker. Set to premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, “Everyday in Kaimukī” follows a radio DJ and his inner turmoil of whether or not to leave Hawai’i to pursue a career in New York.
After reading about the film, I immediately followed the account, bookmarked their Instagram post and purchased a ticket for its premiere screening.
I watched the movie with a friend, unsure of what exactly to expect. Everything sounded promising — the location, the premise, the visuals–but it was a debut indie movie from a local filmmaker that I had never heard about. I was equal parts thrilled and anxious to press play.
For the next hour and 21 minutes, the two of us watched in near silence, as we processed what we were seeing on screen. The story was unlike anything either of us had ever seen captured on film.
There were no sweeping shots of palm trees or the sandy beaches of Waikīkī. There were no hula dancers in coconut bras or tourists drinking piña coladas out of pineapples. Instead, the film takes place almost entirely in the city of Honolulu, with the majority of the scenes set in Kaimukī.
Though seemingly unimportant, when I saw the word “Kaimukī'' in big, bold letters pop up on the screen, I instantly felt my eyes start to water.
Kaimukī is technically a residential neighborhood, not a town, on the southeast side of Honolulu. It is home to a plethora of small businesses such as boutiques and coffee shops, and it has been highly urbanized.
But you won’t see any skyscrapers, high-rise buildings or gated communities in Kaimukī. Instead, there are houses, apartments and establishments that have been around for generations, resulting in an area that is equal parts modern and old Hawai’i.
“The best way I can describe (Kaimukī) is charming,” my friend Sam explained. “It’s multigenerational. It's a community. It's a place where people who grew up on the island have a chance of succeeding in their own businesses. It's a place for people from here. It feels like the heart of Honolulu; it’s the pocket of downtown that still feels like home.”
What’s of equal importance to the setting is that the characters of “Everyday in Kaimukī” aren’t white. All the actors in the film are real-life locals that look like people I grew up around.
The lead, Nazareth Kawakami is part Native-Hawaiian, part-Japanese (hapa). And the leading woman who plays Kawakami’s fictional girlfriend, Rina White, is Asian American and white. The point is, every character in this film actually looks like they were born and raised in Hawai’i.
This film particularly resonated with me as an Asian American and Hawaiian student that has traveled across the Pacific to study film. There's nothing quite like Hawai’i, and the transition to life on the mainland was a lot more difficult than I could’ve imagined.
Watching a character come to terms with whether or not he wanted to stay or leave the only place he’d ever known was a familiar concept I had never seen depicted in the context of Hawai’i. For the first time in my life, I felt represented on screen as a person who was born and raised on O’ahu.
Additionally, I had never seen a film from a Hawaiian filmmaker so heavily stylized like the independent films I love to watch. The experience of watching this film was cathartic and healing to my soul.
In Hawai’i, many people that are born and raised there never have the opportunity to leave — a concept that I personally will never fully understand, coming from a privileged, middle-class household. That being said, the reality is that many people living in Hawai’i don’t have the privilege to dream outside of the island — to dream of going to college on the mainland, of being able to choose where to live, of being able to pursue a creative field.
It is my belief that one of the reasons why film is so important is because it allows others to visualize the lives of people very different from the ones we know. Representation in film allows people to identify and see themselves within these characters.
As we discussed in Sam’s driveway last New Year’s Eve, accurate representation of Hawai’i and the Hawaiian people is so important because our media portrays Hawai’i as a paradise. And to be fair, it is.
Every picture you see of Hawai’i is a true testament to what the island looks like in real life, but the reality of everyday life for the people living there in the wake of colonization is something that is rarely depicted.
“It is paradise,” Sam told me. “But there’s so much more to the paradise. You can go to a picturesque beach and then drive 10 minutes away and see a homeless encampment. It’s paradise with a lot of depth and layers.”
Meet the artist, Alika Tengan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxAp2OaDXXs