Christen Hepuakoamana'a Marquez has made a beautiful film that educates the viewer on the Hawaiian culture and shows how a mother and daughter reconnected through patience, understanding, and sharing their heritage. Christen's Hawaiian mother and Caucasian father met when her father was working as an architect in Honolulu. After marrying and having three children, the family situation became difficult because Christen's mother, Elena, developed worrying symptoms of her previously diagnosed schizophrenia. The family subsequently separated, and Christen's father, the three children, and Elena's twin sister Linda moved to the mainland, leaving Elena on Oahu.
As the film begins, Christen and her brothers have not visited their mother for about ten years. They are all proud Hawaiian-Americans, but mostly live as mainlanders. Christen feels disconnected from her heritage. Christen's first step to prepare for her film was to study hula in NYC. Next, she interviews her Auntie Linda to learn about her youth as a hula student and performer with Christen's mother. Elena is a Kumu Hula, an advanced Hawaiian dancer who becomes a teacher after having completed intense training and testing. Christen realizes that if her mother will teach her three adult children the meaning of the Hawaiian-language names she gave them, it will be a culturally significant and symbolic step to repair their family bond. Christen's 66-character Hawaiian name is abbreviated in her professional name above.
Meanings of most western names are obscured from their linguistic or cultural origins. Few people appreciate what a cooper, a harper, or a mason represented to a town in England, but they name their children for them. When people ignorantly name their kids Apple or Blue, they discard ancestral names that could link children to their heritage. Other cultures like the Hawaiian culture use names to explicitly define hopes and aspirations for children.
Christen also interviews her father and brothers to introduce them and give her father's perspective on their history, Elena's illness, and the family's breakup. The beginning section of the film is a succinct view of a family who bear the traces of past trauma.
Christen and her brothers visit their mother on Oahu for a couple weeks. The visit is good, but not cordial, and while Elena accepts her sons and reveals their names' meanings, she does not explain Christen's Hawaiian name. Christen's identity as a filmmaker seems to be a barrier between them. The constant presence of the camera may have been intellectually acceptable to Elena, but I don't believe she was emotionally prepared to have her day-to-day life exposed. Also, Christen tries to start helping her mother clean out her apartment, since she allowed clutter to overtake her life while obsessively researching family genealogy and planning a future family reunion in exhaustive detail. Christen's implied criticism of her mother creates conflict in an already tense situation.
Christen goes back to the mainland unfulfilled. However, she is not deterred from her goals. She does further research and preparation, and later returns to Oahu to stay with her mother for three months. She is less confrontational and more engaging with Elena. She listens carefully and accepts her mother's limitations.
One key to Christen's preparation was to learn a Hawaiian language chant intended to ask a Kumu Hula to accept an apprentice. Christen performs this chant for her mother successfully, but Elena does not give formal acknowledgment of her chant by giving another chant in return. Christen shows herself as a willing supplicant, but Elena does not completely accept her.
Christen interviews her mother's doctors from her dark period by phone, and also consults a Hawaiian cultural leader. She learns Elena experienced debilitating side effects from psychotropic drugs and refused to resume taking the pills after the birth of her third child. Conflict with her family, doctors, and social workers increased her symptoms and led to the family breakup.
The film treats mental illness inquisitively and realistically. There is a connotative difference to me between managing a chronic illness and treating an acute disease. Elena's experience with her illness has taught her to manage her life, but she has rejected western medicine's attempt to "cure" her by suppressing her personality with drugs.
The Hawaiian leader tells Christen that she must accept her duty as a Hawaiian woman to inherit her mother's legacy and be a responsible bearer of Hawaiian culture. Elena has waited for her daughter to desire and accept her legacy.
Two happy events advance the rising action of the film. Elena and Christen have a great day visiting Kawai, a friend from Elena's hula life twenty years ago. Christen sees her mother as a happy, fulfilled, and completely engrossed Kumu Hula. Kawai's friendship with Elena reveals her potential as a teacher that was overwhelmed by her mental illness and obsessive tendencies.
Another climax comes when Christen accompanies Elena to visit her other four brothers and sisters on the Big Island. It is Elena's first airplane trip in decades, and the reunion is very happy for all. We see Christen and Elena in a smiling crowd of extended family hopeful for closer ties in the future.
After returning to her mother's apartment on Oahu, Christen brings her own handwritten translation of her Hawaiian name to her mother. It is lyrical and beautiful. Elena sees that her daughter has correctly understood her Hawaiian identity represented in her name. Elena complements Christen and accepts her more lovingly than before.
I think Elena accepts Christen's identity as a filmmaker and the gift that this film gives the world. Christen started with the intent to help her family and to responsibly illustrate Hawaiian culture to a wider audience. This filmmaker succeeds by showing her audience how she broke down barriers of time and distance to reunite herself and her brothers with their mother and their extended family.
As the film begins, Christen and her brothers have not visited their mother for about ten years. They are all proud Hawaiian-Americans, but mostly live as mainlanders. Christen feels disconnected from her heritage. Christen's first step to prepare for her film was to study hula in NYC. Next, she interviews her Auntie Linda to learn about her youth as a hula student and performer with Christen's mother. Elena is a Kumu Hula, an advanced Hawaiian dancer who becomes a teacher after having completed intense training and testing. Christen realizes that if her mother will teach her three adult children the meaning of the Hawaiian-language names she gave them, it will be a culturally significant and symbolic step to repair their family bond. Christen's 66-character Hawaiian name is abbreviated in her professional name above.
Meanings of most western names are obscured from their linguistic or cultural origins. Few people appreciate what a cooper, a harper, or a mason represented to a town in England, but they name their children for them. When people ignorantly name their kids Apple or Blue, they discard ancestral names that could link children to their heritage. Other cultures like the Hawaiian culture use names to explicitly define hopes and aspirations for children.
Christen also interviews her father and brothers to introduce them and give her father's perspective on their history, Elena's illness, and the family's breakup. The beginning section of the film is a succinct view of a family who bear the traces of past trauma.
Christen and her brothers visit their mother on Oahu for a couple weeks. The visit is good, but not cordial, and while Elena accepts her sons and reveals their names' meanings, she does not explain Christen's Hawaiian name. Christen's identity as a filmmaker seems to be a barrier between them. The constant presence of the camera may have been intellectually acceptable to Elena, but I don't believe she was emotionally prepared to have her day-to-day life exposed. Also, Christen tries to start helping her mother clean out her apartment, since she allowed clutter to overtake her life while obsessively researching family genealogy and planning a future family reunion in exhaustive detail. Christen's implied criticism of her mother creates conflict in an already tense situation.
Christen goes back to the mainland unfulfilled. However, she is not deterred from her goals. She does further research and preparation, and later returns to Oahu to stay with her mother for three months. She is less confrontational and more engaging with Elena. She listens carefully and accepts her mother's limitations.
One key to Christen's preparation was to learn a Hawaiian language chant intended to ask a Kumu Hula to accept an apprentice. Christen performs this chant for her mother successfully, but Elena does not give formal acknowledgment of her chant by giving another chant in return. Christen shows herself as a willing supplicant, but Elena does not completely accept her.
Christen interviews her mother's doctors from her dark period by phone, and also consults a Hawaiian cultural leader. She learns Elena experienced debilitating side effects from psychotropic drugs and refused to resume taking the pills after the birth of her third child. Conflict with her family, doctors, and social workers increased her symptoms and led to the family breakup.
The film treats mental illness inquisitively and realistically. There is a connotative difference to me between managing a chronic illness and treating an acute disease. Elena's experience with her illness has taught her to manage her life, but she has rejected western medicine's attempt to "cure" her by suppressing her personality with drugs.
The Hawaiian leader tells Christen that she must accept her duty as a Hawaiian woman to inherit her mother's legacy and be a responsible bearer of Hawaiian culture. Elena has waited for her daughter to desire and accept her legacy.
Two happy events advance the rising action of the film. Elena and Christen have a great day visiting Kawai, a friend from Elena's hula life twenty years ago. Christen sees her mother as a happy, fulfilled, and completely engrossed Kumu Hula. Kawai's friendship with Elena reveals her potential as a teacher that was overwhelmed by her mental illness and obsessive tendencies.
Another climax comes when Christen accompanies Elena to visit her other four brothers and sisters on the Big Island. It is Elena's first airplane trip in decades, and the reunion is very happy for all. We see Christen and Elena in a smiling crowd of extended family hopeful for closer ties in the future.
After returning to her mother's apartment on Oahu, Christen brings her own handwritten translation of her Hawaiian name to her mother. It is lyrical and beautiful. Elena sees that her daughter has correctly understood her Hawaiian identity represented in her name. Elena complements Christen and accepts her more lovingly than before.
I think Elena accepts Christen's identity as a filmmaker and the gift that this film gives the world. Christen started with the intent to help her family and to responsibly illustrate Hawaiian culture to a wider audience. This filmmaker succeeds by showing her audience how she broke down barriers of time and distance to reunite herself and her brothers with their mother and their extended family.
