Dare to Hula, Leave Your Shame at Home
These men weep, kiss and cry. But they'll dance their way into your hearts.
The dancers in "Na Kamalei: The Men of Hula" sway their hips in movements as fluid as the ocean, but make no mistake about it - these are men's men.
They're beer guzzling firemen, fathers and surfers who just happen to have a burning penchant to celebrate their Hawaiian heritage by donning flower leis and dancing in harmony. If you have a problem with that, talk to Robert Cazimero, the seemingly mild-mannered master hula teacher, whose laid-back attitude can suddenly explode into rage while he's coaching his male dancers to the Super Bowl of hula competitions.
"I'm doing this for your self-f-ing esteem!" he shouts when his men fall out of line.
With all of these elements (sinewy arms, explosive personalities and the pure drama of yes, a hula competition) filmmaker Lisette Marie Flanary catches cinematic gold with this heartwarming documentary that captures all of the emotions that go hand in hand with hula.
And boy, are there tears.
There are probably more scenes of these men's men unabashedly hugging, kissing and crying in this film than in the entire discourse of American film. But what's so wrong with that?
"To be a good hula dancer you have to be in touch with your emotions. It's powerful," said Flanary, who has traveled the country to different film festivals and has met countless women who want their husbands to dance hula after watching the documentary.
"It's okay to see women hug and show affection towards each other, but where do we have images of from men? It's refreshing to see."
HA: Hula's Anonymous
For Flanary, 34, it's not so much an addiction as an obsession. She thinks about hula 24 hours a day. If she's not dancing, she's thinking about it or filming it.
And the New York University film school graduate has cornered the market on hula documentaries.
"Na Kamalei" is the second in a "Star Wars" like trilogy. Her first feature film, "American Aloha: Hula Beyond Hawai'i," won rave reviews and airtime on PBS with its examination of hula on the mainland. Her third installment will chronicle the huge popularity of hula in Japan.
"My friends here in New York always joke, 'Oh, you're making another hula movie?'" she laughed.
Flanary, a Hawaiian native who is of Japanese, Irish and Cherokee descent, also heads up a hula dance group in the Big Apple. Yes, New York. In 2006, she graduated as an 'olapa (dancer) under master hula teacher Patrick Makuakane in San Francisco and decided to head her own weekly hula dance class in a modern dance studio space where they don't get strange looks when they dance to the rhythm of their ipu.
"Hula is not just a dance class; it's really a way of life."
She came to realize that with "Na Kamalei" - it's not something you do once a week. These are your hula brothers and sisters. Some people get that and some people don't.
More than a filmmaker, Flanary considers herself a storyteller whether through writing, film or dance. In this film, she wanted to dispel stereotypes of coconut bras and the "hoochie coochie" hula girl image that peppered the dreams of many colonizing minds.
The documentary made for $280,000 screened at last year's Hawaiian International Film Festival on a huge massive screen on the beach with the sun setting in the background and Cazimero crooning live.
"There were leis everywhere. My parents were like, 'This is fun!'"
But it wasn't always that glamorous for Flanary. She recently found time to marry her longtime love, filmmaker Phil Bertelson, after putting off the wedding because of hula.
"Yeah, it was hula, 'Na Kamalei' and oh yeah let's plan the wedding!" she joked.
Teaching Old Dogs
Flanary met Cazimero for the first time at a 2003 film festival in New York when she pitched the idea of a documentary.
"He totally wasn't into the idea of a documentary at first. I think it was the Hawaiian humility. Why would you want to do a documentary on me? He wasn't 100 percent ready." But with the help of her co-producer and Cazimero student Keo Woolford, she finally convinced the hula teacher how important it was to document his group's 30th anniversary of existence and its return to competitive form.
Of course after 30 years, the "forms" aren't exactly the same.
Cazimero's men, 18 to 55, are a dizzying lineup of the tanned and taut mixed with the sagging and gray. It's the quintessential sports story - the rag tag underdog team reenters the arena after the competition itself has changed. Today's men's hula teams are dominated with young, chiseled bodies that contort into impossible mid-air acrobatics. Cazimero's old dogs, in contrast, rage against the dying of the light.
"Sometimes as a documentary filmmaker you get this feeling that people are on their best behavior. But Robert was always like this is who I am. There was never any kind of mask."
It wasn't about them winning. It was about them celebrating being around for so long, Flanary added.
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