Hawaiian Punch (Nandan Rao, 2013, USA, 68 min)
Micro-Wave Cinema Series, 4070 Vilas Hall, Sunday, October 12, 7pm»
Anyone who has read my reviews on this website can probably tell that I enjoy genre films. I enjoy formulae that are well executed, as well as variations thereof. Sometimes, though, I also enjoy being dropped into the middle of something more avant-garde, with a story whose beats are imperceptible, and a filmmaker who is demanding of my trust in guiding me where I need to go. Hawaiian Punch is very much the latter kind of film, and another valuable contribution to local moviegoing, courtesy of the Micro-Wave Cinema Series.
When I looked at the last Nandan Rao film to screen at Micro-Wave, The Men of Dodge City, I was struck by the stillness of his camera, the obliqueness of his storytelling, and how pronounced were the ways in which editing shaped the film. Once again, I am in awe at his editing, which deftly juxtaposes moments of idle amusement with religious and philosophical conversation. Rao has no qualms about quickly cutting to black while keeping the audio track going, emphasizing cinema as an aural experience as well as a visual one. He also has no qualms about cutting the audio and letting you focus purely on the visual beauty of the film, but more on that later. I also love his storytelling, which does a tremendous job of allowing the intrigue of these characters’ questions of faith and moving forward in life to develop organically in concert with the film’s style. It is an intrigue of everyday life, which is handled with patience and control as opposed to pretension or indulgence.
Where this film differs slightly from The Men of Dodge City is in its cinematography. For as many long, still shots as there are in this film, Rao also employs a slow-roaming camera that moves around and around its subjects, sometimes catching their expressions (as in the top left corner of the shot seen here) and sometimes obscuring them. Coupled with the gentility of his focal decisions, the way he captures the characters in his film is certainly compelling, but I also found myself elated at the shots where Rao is preoccupied with little more than how light fills his frame. Whether it is two identically composed shots of a church with markedly different light, two characters huddled over a Mac laptop and little other lighting, or an empty room that light washes over, Rao’s deftness at capturing and wielding light gives his films a captivating aesthetic that is among the finest in contemporary independent cinema.
In the end, the film feels like a collection of memories, often dreamlike in their beauty. And if you are surprised not to find much discussion of plot here, know that this is by design. To put words to this story would be to deprive you of that very beauty I just mentioned. As I said about The Men of Dodge City, Hawaiian Punch is also a film that is filled with identifiable everyday moments that transcend their mundane nature. However, instead of being on the lighter side, Hawaiian Punch opts for more anxiety and, consequently, more gravity. I look forward to more of Rao’s work, and the fact that Micro-Wave is putting this film in a theater, even for a single night, is something of which the Madison moviegoing community should be proud, especially because Micro-Wave gives you the chance to interact with the filmmakers themselves at every single screening.
If you want to know more about Micro-Wave Cinema, check out my interview with founder and filmmaker Brandon Colvin here, and visit the series’ Facebook page. In the meantime, if you are looking for an alternative to the formulaic—however much you may enjoy it—I would suggest giving this film or any of the others from Micro-Wave a chance. You may find the films demanding, but they are also every bit as rewarding.