Director: Arcia Tecun (2021)
Length: 56:00
Keywords: Kava; Tonga; Culture; Gender; Identity
Link: https://doi.org/10.15845/jaf.v5i01.2844
Arcia Tecun, also known as Daniel Hernandez, is an anthropologist based out of the University of Auckland in New Zealand. From 2015 to 2018, Tecun embarked on a multisite ethnographic film interviewing Tongan people located around the world. He would explore the significance of the Kava ceremony in Tongan culture, which he had been a part of for the better part of 17 years. Tecun’s previous anthropological work has mainly been focused on Tongan culture, more specifically the significance of Kava in Tongan culture this provided him with the connections that would be needed to create this film. The Film opens on Arcia Tecun introducing himself, the film, and his personal bias regarding being an outsider commenting on someone else’s culture. This moment of reflexivity is one of the many instances where we can see how the film is geared towards a general audience for educational purposes rather than the Tongan people. This is also shown in the intertitle scene where they provided background information not heard in interviews. The film takes a storytelling approach that slowly introduces the audience to the faikava (a Kava ceremony), and you learn more and more about it as the film progresses. From its origin stories to its modern re-imaginings, you are taken on a journey through kava.
The faikava is an event that holds much cultural meaning to the traditional people of Tonga, as well as other cultural groups in Polynesia. They can be formal or informal, but will most certainly occur around significant moments, like weddings or funerals. The purpose of these kava ceremonies is to provide a safe environment to come together to sing traditional songs and to discuss what is going on in everyone’s life – like relationships, politics, sports, and societal pressure. These ceremonies allow members to relax, create relationships, and forget the outside world. Kava is an important part of Tongan life; it is even at the core of their origin story of the world. This meaning, that Kava does not only bring people together but provides a mythic frame for life, as discussed in the formal, and informal interviews conducted by the director and film team. Indeed, the faikava connects Tongans to the land, their ancestry, and traditions. The editing of the film does a great job at showing the connection to the land and traditions by using personal interviews explaining the individual experience stating those facts taken from multiple locations around the world. From this, we are able to make the connection as an audience that it is a cross-cultural phenomenon that transcends space and localities. In other words, these cross-continental interviews highlight Tongan culture and their connections with Kava both in Tonga, as well as other places in the world like Australia and The United States of America.
The filmmaker breaks the film into chapters, which aid in the viewer’s understanding of the significance of the Kava ceremony. These Chapters allow for the viewer to mentally reflect on the previous chapter’s teachings during the title breaks. This moment of reflection allows the viewer to enter a new chapter with a clear head. Tecun consistently builds the viewer’s understanding by starting the film with broad ideas of culture and slowly moves into more in-depth teachings about the aspects of faikava ceremony like gender, music, and spirituality. In addition, the use of archival research in the intertitle scenes highlights the issue of colonization and conservation of traditional activities in a changing modern world. We can see this aspect because some of the intertitle information chosen by the director are taken from the journals of missionaries. In one passage, it is stated that the missionaries did not enjoy that the traditional music was played in their presence. It is later commented in the interviews that the songs were distorted to match a more colonial tone.
The director’s use of the camera is interesting. Many of the shots are done from his perspective within the kava circle. This viewpoint creates the illusion that the viewer is a part of the circle and an active participant. By doing this the director subtly removes the outlook of the outsider looking in. This technique is important when remembering that the directed audience of the film is the general public. Throughout the film, it is talked about that you do not have to be Tongan or a part of the Polynesian culture to be invited to the kava ceremonies. The subtle camera work of including the viewer in the circle drives that idea forward. By the end of the film, the audience has a place at the table, so to say, and can begin understanding the importance of the relationships built and the traditions kept alive by being involved in a faikava.
References
Tecun, A. (2021). Kava Rootz. Journal of Anthropological Films, 5(01). https://doi.org/10.15845/jaf.v5i01.2844
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