Father Geek here in ol' Texas. Ms Moon Yun Choi has filed another look at homegrown Hawaiian Cinema with me today... films most of us will more than likely never get a chance to see, and that's a shame because they sound wonderful. Little windows into a world apart from the one we experience in our day by day hustle & bustle. Its great to hear about them though, maybe they'll appear at some fest near you, and now you'll know to get in line for the tickets, you'll know the wait is worthwhile. That there's a window waiting to be opened so that that flower scented cool island sea breeze will refresh you just a little bit... maybe...hopefully...
Aloha, Moon Yun signing in from Hawaii where I went to another set of the Cinema No Ka Oi (locally made films and videos) at the 2003 Hawaii International Film Festival.
And like in my previous reports, I’ve gone back to using the plant metaphors.
I would give the bonsai tree to LIVING YOUR DYING, directed by Robert Pennybacker and Joy Chong-Stannard. Sure the 57-minute, color documentary which focuses on the insight of Rev. Dr. Mitsuo Aoki on death as a healing process wasn’t as sharply made as THEY CALL HER LADY FINGERS (THE BETTY LOO TAYLOR STORY), a documentary that preceded it, but it was strong in its content. According to Dan Habik of The Bonsai Site, the bonsai tree first originated in China over a thousand years ago before the Japanese adopted the practice of growing single specimen trees in pots. LIVING YOUR DYING was so magnificent in its message and teachings that the bonsai tree was the first image that came to mind.
Aoki is a semi-retired theologian, minister, college professor and founder of the University of Hawaii's Department of Religion. The doc follows Aoki counseling four terminally-ill patients through their last stages of life. From what I understood of the film, LIVING YOUR DYING is about just that. As we go through our journey in life, we’re dying but death is not to be afraid of because it’s a healing process. Those who’ve been chosen to go are actually lucky. To get a copy of the video, go to www.livingyourdying.com.
Betty Loo Taylor. What can I say about Betty Loo. Well actually nothing until I went to see the 57-minute documentary because I had never heard of her before and I don’t know much about jazz. Apparently a lot of people have because there was a packed crowd for the screening of THEY CALL HER LADY FINGERS (THE BETTY LOO TAYLOR STORY). And this pianist is known throughout the jazz world as a living Hawaii jazz legend.
Patricia Gillespie, who directed the doc, explains what gave her the inspiration to do a story on Betty Loo: “(My husband) is a good friend of Jimmy Borges, Betty and Russ Freeman, who was a very famous pianist. Freeman said to Sam (her husband), ‘Do you guys know what you have out here?’ Sam said, ‘Nice weather, aloha and beautiful beaches.’ Freeman responded, ‘No, you have Betty Loo Taylor. She’s a genius.’ That gave Sam (and I) the idea to do a documentary.”
Gillespie is a documentary maker and video production teacher at Kamehameha Schools in Hawaii. It took her and her crew about three years to complete the project, one of which was to convince Betty to agree to it because she didn’t think people would be interested in hearing about her life story, which is a fascinating and colorful one.
Betty Loo reminded me of the bird-of-paradise, because like the flower which resembles an exotic bird with its blue and orange blossom, she’s unique.
Gillespie is planning to shop her doc to PBS and to come out with a DVD. For updates, go to www.bettylootaylor.com. To see a film clip of Betty Loo playing, go to the HIFF web site at www.hiff.org. You’ll also see clips from other films in the festival.
After the two films, I stayed on at the Doris Duke Theater at the Art Academy for the Cinema No Ka Oi: Love…or Something Like It. Expecting by the title cute love stories, these shorts were more “something like it” rather than “love.”
SWEET ‘N’ SIMPLE, a 35-minute, color short, was crudely made. The director, Aran Higa, even admitted that he had to use whatever equipment available to him at the New Media Center at the University of Hawaii. However, the film about a college girl’s first Valentine’s card from a secret admirer was still a dear heart. It’s about a nerdy girl who’s a science whiz. During a conversation with her friends in which she complains about her love life, she digresses into these long, scientific technical jargons. After a while it sounds kind of sexy. She wishes she had a boyfriend and is shocked to find a Valentine’s Day card in her locker. From that moment on, she tracks him down by using her scientific prowess.
THE RIGHT SPOT, a 15-minute, black and white short, is about a woman who’s going through marital problems and through her girlfriend she finds out a way, rather unconventional one, of keeping her man. Her girlfriend tells her to hit her husband over the head with a skillet every time he wants to leave her. This causes temporary amnesia and she can fill him in on their wonderful married life. However, she fails to hit him on the right area of the head to keep his real memories of their deteriorating marriage from coming back. She keeps pounding away at his head, even to the point of near skull fracture and bleeding, until she hits the right spot.
I know my dad loves me even when he scolds me, which is rarely, that I make one lousy housewife. I’ve gotten too busy with assignments and activities that I haven’t been keeping house. When I think of that skillet from THE RIGHT SPOT, I think maybe the distraught housewife should lay a steak on there and cook it rather than beating him over the head with the skillet. Jeff Katts, the director, producer, and cinematographer, admits the story, while comical, is a little twisted. The screenplay is by Cari Carter.
SEEKING RAINBOWS, a 16-minute, color short, is about two frustrated, lonely and fat women who seek comfort in food. They decide to go on a diet, and while they don’t shed off the pounds, they manage to get boyfriends by changing their attitudes. It’s a funny movie made even funnier by good acting from Katerina Jarrett. (Or is it Katrina. I have two spellings here). Mane is the director; Don Marks the cinematographer. Lena Kaneshiro and Jarrett are the screenwriters as well as principal actors.
The script is the blueprint of a film. When I asked Billy Ray, the screenwriter and director of SHATTERED GLASS, what advice he would give to aspiring screenwriters, he took a moment to pause and said: “Oh boy. The first would be to spend a lot of time writing, to re-write, and re-write and re-write before you show scripts to anybody… to be extremely tough on your own material and to pay more attention to the people who are critical of you than you do to the people who tell you everything you write is brilliant.”
Check out the photos of the filmmakers at This Location.
Oh yes, what plant/flower would I give “Love…or Something Like It?” I would say, a yellow hibiscus to wear on either side of the ear to show whether you’re taken or not.
