In THE QUEEN’S FLOWERS and STANDING ABOVE THE CLOUDS, wāhine Hawaiʻi (Native Hawaiian women) take center stage. A hundred years separate the events of the films, but both celebrate the unique ways in which wāhine resist settler colonialism. Across time, love of land and lāhui help us persist through every storm.
The animated medium of THE QUEEN’S FLOWERS suits its magical realist style. It garnishes the story of how Kānaka ʻŌiwi honored Queen Liliʻuokalani long after her unlawful dethronement and house arrest. She is remembered as a beloved leader who put the needs of her people before her own. When she abdicated to avoid further bloodshed of her people and the United States failed to restore her power, Kānaka mourned the unseating of a leader who fought for their best interests — even at great personal cost THE QUEEN’S FLOWERS is set in 1915, seventeen years after the U.S. annexation of Hawaiʻi. The short film characterizes the feeling among many Kānaka then and now: still loyal, grateful, and bonded to the aliʻi wahine and to the rest of the lāhui (nation, people). The feelings of the lāhui are personified by Emma, a young ʻŌiwi girl who makes a connection with Liliʻuokalani with some help from a magical friend. She is based on the real life Emma Pollock, who attended the Episcopal boarding school neighboring the site of Liliʻuokalani’s imprisonment between 1906 and 1914. The two share knowing glances across the garden, and Emma gains the courage to break out of her room to give the Queen a crown flower lei.
The documentary STANDING ABOVE THE CLOUDS follows three sets of mothers and daughters through the battles to protect Maunakea and the life it sustains in the present, with most events depicted occurring over the past decade. Kānaka have long protested the construction of telescopes on the sacred mountain, but resistance spread from the courtrooms to the frontlines in 2015 when groups of protectors halted construction of the proposed Thirty Meter Telescope with bodies and blockades. Even more than they speak to the camera, the film’s subjects speak to each other, sharing candidly about tolls taken to sustain long, repeated bouts of direct action.
I appreciated how both films celebrated wahine leadership without romanticizing our experiences; they still gave credence to how painful and complicated it can be to live under settler colonial domination. THE QUEEN’S FLOWERS depicts Liliʻuokalani’s infamous imprisonment, but also shows how young Kānaka like Emma were imprisoned in their own sense: missionized, surveilled, and disciplined at settler-run religious educational institutions, and showing viewers how wāhine indeed resisted the repression of the Territorial period. STANDING ABOVE THE CLOUDS sheds light on working class families living on Hawaiʻi Island, like my own, who put life on hold to host the sudden explosion of the movement. Those without flexible employers faced financial hardship. Health problems went unchecked. Relationships among and within families and communities became strained, as the pressures of the movement revealed the existing hierarchies and prejudices within our lāhui. For better or worse, we were forced to face them, together.
And together, the subjects of the films reconcile and resist. They do so through typically feminized acts, like lei-making, singing, child rearing, and even applying makeup. Kapulei Flores characterizes Maunakea itself as a feminine entity, affectionately referring to the mountain as “her” and “girl.” A sticker on her truck reads “YOTAS ARE FOR GIRLS”; claiming the notorious truck of choice for the local braddah (the Toyota Tacoma, preferably lifted) for the girls instead. When land protectors hailed to the akua (elementals, deities) of the mountain, they proudly proclaimed the presence of feminine ones: Līlīnoe (the mist)! Moʻoinanea (lizard guardian of water)! Contrasting most news accounts which describe Wākea (sky father) as the god of the mountain.
Land-based heritage arts like lei-making and weaving symbolize the ways we connect with the land, with family, and with lāhui. Pua Case makes a kukui leaf lei for Maunakea. Leinaʻala Sleightholm strips hala leaves to weave with her mother. Emma’s crown flower lei for Liliʻuokalani sends a clear message: we honor your royal status. While in bloom, the five petals of the crown flower peel back to reveal tiny crown-shaped centers. As a giant tropical milkweed, it hosts monarch butterflies, which also enjoy a named association with royalty. Despite the U.S. government’s deposition of Hawaiian national sovereignty, many Kānaka still recognized Liliʻuokalani and other Kānaka with connections to the historic monarchy as Hawaiʻi’s rightful leaders.
As an ʻŌiwi daughter who was at once worried for the wellbeing and immensely proud of my own Mauna Mama for taking a stand, these films resonated. It isn’t easy to stand for what’s right when faced with exhausting systems of oppression, but the ones we love and the ʻāina we stand on are well worth the fight.
Makana Kushi (Kānaka ʻŌiwi) was born and raised on Hawaiʻi Island. She is a lecturer at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo doing research and teaching on Hawaiʻi, US, and Indigenous history and politics, particularly focused on intersections of race, gender, and environment.
Beginning in 2010, Film for Thought (FFT), a collaborative program between the Hawai’i Council for the Humanities (HIHumanities) and HIFF, was born. Film For Thought is a special program designed to inspire critical discourse and community dialogue through the medium of film. Celebrating the longstanding relationship between HIHumanities and HIFF, FFT features a select group of films that resonate particularly with aspects of the humanities. As part of this programming, HIHumanities invites humanities scholars to respond to these selected films through written essays and panel discussions.
