Exploring the 'Nitty Gritty' Side of Paradise in...Fishbowl

Last film by late director Kayo Hatta brings Lois-Ann Yamanaka's Wild Meat and Bully Burgers to life

By LYNDA LIN, Assistant Editor, Pacific Citizen

In Fishbowl, the kids of paradise constantly swim up against barriers usually unseen in the hypnotizing travel ads about Hawaii. But in 13-year-old Lovey Nariyoshi’s world at the end of the rainbow, life is dappled with blueberry scented bullies and the inability to find the right words at the right time.

Bespeckled with thick-rimmed glasses and blessed with a rotund crown of curly hair a la another offbeat film character named Napoleon Dynamite, Lovey (played by newcomer Mie Omori) is like the splotchy fish in a fishbowl filled with radiant golden fish like Lori Shigemura (Jordan Mukai), who is the head of a popular girls club called the Rays of the Rising Dawn. 

There’s a group like the Rays in every school — the pretty girls in pretty clothes who wear the same perfume, carry the same pencil cases and delight in picking apart smaller fish. And for Lovey and best friend Jerry (Billy Lam), finding words to fight back is always lost in a cluster of Hawaiian Pidgin English.

“It’s just another universal kids’ story of wanting acceptance told from the local Hawaiian perspective,” said producer Linda Barry.

The film’s voiceover and dialogue is spoken entirely in Pidgin, an unprecedented use of language without subtitles. Hatta, who was born in Honolulu, had said she was attracted to the lyricism of Pidgin, a plantation language long regarded as inferior to standard English.

In the film, the kids tug with social issues of language and class.

“She wanted to show the ‘slice of life’ from the other side of paradise — the nitty gritty side …” said Barry.

The short film based on the novel, Wild Meat and Bully Burgers by Hawaiian writer Lois-Ann Yamanaka, was filmmaker Kayo Hatta’s last project before her untimely death. She died in a drowning accident at a friend’s home July 20.

Hatta, who was also a screenwriter and an educator, directed and co-wrote the 1995 Sundance Audience Award-winning film Picture Bride.

She was an “actor’s director,” said Hatta’s longtime friends and film collaborators Barry and Eleanor Nakama-Mitsunaga.

“She likes to work very closely with the actors and it’s always a collaborative effort,” added Nakama-Mitsunaga.

Now Hatta’s friends, fans and community members are celebrating the filmmaker’s life and work with festival screenings of Fishbowl, including an Oct. 22 Hawaiian homecoming tribute screening along with Picture Bride.

Fishbowl was shot in Oahu with a shoestring budget. Hatta was a fan of Yamanaka’s work and wanted to bring the colorful stories and all its authenticity to the big screen, but as usual swam against the barrier of funding. Through the National Asian American Telecommunications Association (NAATA) and the Independent Television Service (ITVS), they were able to make a short film, but Hatta had wished to turn the short film into a feature-length trilogy covering Lovey’s and Jerry’s antics from junior high through high school.

“I remember she had me read Wild Meat and Bully Burgers back in 1997,” said Barry, who was drawn to the script herself because Lovey reminded her of her own mother, a plantation kid born and raised in Kauai who faced a similar dilemma with Pidgin. “I think [Lovey and Hatta] are both independent minded women with strong convictions.”

The cast is made up mostly of local Hawaiians kids — most of whom spoke Pidgin and worked with an on set dialect coach.

The Fishbowl shoot, which took place over a decade after Picture Bride, pushed Hatta into the spotlight and was filled with happy memories. Barry was 33 weeks pregnant during the open casting call in Hilo.

“We did screen tests for 150 people that day,” she said. “Then we went out for a nice dinner because we couldn’t believe we did that … we were so hungry! We enjoyed our food!”

Between films, Hatta developed other projects and turned down commercial film jobs, but her ultimate dream was to let her artistic vision run free without any of the budgetary constraints she struggled with all along.

And during her Hawaiian homecoming screening, fans and friends will gather to celebrate her life and work and reflect on what could’ve been.

For more information check www.fishbowlfilm.com.

Other Readings of Interest

• Filmmaker Kayo Hatta Remembered
  Multiple Contributors
  Eric Byler, Eddie Wong, and Stewart David Ikeda share personal reflections on the pioneering filmmaker whose final film, Fishbowl, begins airing nationally on PBS May 9, 2006
• Producer Lisa Onodera
  By Yayoi Lena Winfrey, AAV Contributing Editor
  Picture Bride's producer discusses challenges of finding audiences for ethnic films...or building them.  Part 4 of a series, Multicultural Entertainment Marketing Series: Perils & Rewards of the "Ethnic Niche" in the Entertainment Industry.