Burning resentment at colonial exploitation on Kauai, seen through the veil of history’s smoke.
The documentary “Cane Fire” begins with a reference to a lost silent film of the same name, made by the director Lois Weber in 1934. Her pre-Hays-Code melodrama followed a doomed romance between a plantation owner and one of his workers, and ended with its spurned heroine burning the fields of her former lover. In the new documentary, the director, Anthony Banua-Simon, explains in voice-over that the original film was shot on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, and that his great-grandfather was one of the Filipino plantation workers hired as an extra.
In the spirit of this opening acknowledgment, Banua-Simon’s version of “Cane Fire” uses his own family history to demonstrate Kauai’s legacy of plantation colonialism. Woven into this record, archival footage shows how Hollywood beckoned to tourists with its romantic vision of Bali Hai — a paradise where visitors are kings and locals are set dressing.
Banua-Simon interviews relatives who still live in Kauai, along with their neighbors and co-workers. Through these conversations, he chronicles exploitation that spans generations. In the film, locals explain that while sugar plantation workers once organized unions, their descendants now break their backs to fuel Kauai’s tourist and real estate industries.
The cinematography is often grainy, and occasionally Banua-Simon’s choice of interview subjects feels unfocused or repetitive. But there is tremendous educational and moral value in his overview of the history of Kauai. He has a strong grasp of how industries mutate, replicating their practices of exploitation like a cancer. The context he provides in voice-over and through archival footage lends power to his interviews, suggesting the generations of exhaustion that underlie simple statements of frustration and grief.
Cane Fire
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. In theaters.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
