‘Cane Fire’ Film Review: Searing Doc Examines Hawaii’s Exploitation by Developers, Corporations, and Hollywood

thewrap.com:

th century. The image comes from a now-lost film, “Cane Fire,” where he acted as an extra. Like many others, Banua-Simon’s grandfather Alberto and his great-uncle Henry, who appears in the film, labored in the fields for many years.After detailing how the five major sugar companies carried out union-busting practices, and even deported those who demanded better wages and living conditions, the director takes to task Hollywood’s willing participation in creating the image of Hawaii, and specifically Kauaʻi, as welcoming getaway for white outsiders.Footage of “Blue Hawaii” (1961) starring Elvis Presley or “The Hawaiians” (1970) with Charlton Heston, both shot there, is interspersed to highlight the exoticism that prevailed in those cinematic depictions of the inhabitants, whether native or immigrants.

Banua-Simon consistently reels his film’s many thematic threads back to the notion of existing only as “extras,” perpetually in the background of white stars or visitors.

That feeling remains applicable to the way in which profit for the few gets prioritized over the well-being of permanent residents today.One glaring example of how the white gaze sees others as interchangeable and undistinguishable occurs in a clip from 2002’s “Dragonfly,” with Kevin Costner.

While locals of Asian descent were accustomed to productions casting anyone to play native Hawaiian, the creators of this drama took it a step further and cast them to play indigenous people from the Amazon rainforest in South America.