A few months ago I attended the funeral of one of my grandmother’s remaining brothers who lives in Hawai’i. Hawai’i is a special place for my family as it is where my great grandparents settled after leaving Western Sāmoa.
This central home where they settled and raised their children has since seen many generations pass through its doors. My grandparents home was the next town over but whenever I think about my childhood home, to me, it exists in those two spaces thanks to the strong relationship my grandmother had with her siblings growing up. The flow between households was fluid and constant.
My grandparents would move from that home we grew up in but my uncle kept the original family home in his possession. There have been many structural additions, news walls erected and new rooms built, exterior and interior progressively changing, but the feeling of familiarity has remained the same. Each time I return to that white, two-story home filled with the history of my family— I feel at peace.
Most of our time was spent with family and we didn’t have much downtime but I did make it a priority for us to go swimming at least once before we left. The last time I visited was in 2019 and I was long overdue for reconnecting with the ocean. There have, of course, been lakes, reservoirs, and of course swimming pools in between, but no body of water sufficient enough to match the power of the ocean.
It didn’t hit me how much I needed that time with the saltwater until I was actually in its depths. A wave of comfort and euphoria settled over me like a weighted blanket and when it was time to leave, despite being there for hours, it still felt inadequate.
As a writer, a lot of my projects do happen to focus on Sāmoan culture, specifically from the perspective of Sāmoan women. We don’t have nearly enough films that explore what it is to be a Sāmoan woman in the diaspora and even less so from the experience of living in the U.S. These reasons, and an enduring love for all things to do with folklore and horror, I found myself actively seeking out Nanny written and directed by Nikyatu Jusu.
Nanny follows Aisha, played by a magnificent Anna Diop, an undocumented Senegalese immigrant in New York City. Aisha has left her son, Lamine, in the care of her cousin back home and has dedicated herself to earning enough money to bring him over to the states to live with her.
Aisha is hired as a nanny for a wealthy white couple on the Upper East Side and the film is punctuated by her time spent taking care of this family’s child while she has to communicate to her own through a series of phone calls and promises that he will join her in New York soon, weaving the film’s threads of race, class, and immigration tightly together.
Aisha’s employers soon start to neglect paying her for her work, only adding to the stress and frustration of being reunited with her son. She also endures unwanted sexual advances from the husband of this couple, after which Aisha begins to suffer through paralyzing dreams featuring her son along with being submerged in water and drowning. We are introduced to an African water spirit, Mami Wata, who takes the form of a mermaid. These visions seem to be guiding Aisha towards something, though she struggles to make the connections as her story goes on.
When Aisha has finally raised the funds for airfare and is waiting for the flight carrying her cousin and son, she learns that Lamine is dead—drowned in the ocean during a visit to the beach. While in the film Aisha is able to recoup from this unexpected loss in the last few minutes of the movie, the recurring motifs of water and the appearance of Mami Wata, to me, represent the power in staying close to your cultural beliefs.
This psychological thriller presents the lived reality of so many in the diaspora, trying to balance survival with nurturing our ties to culture, an approach that can at times be otherworldly. Whether it’s intuition or the gift of sight, there’s no denying that there is a force beyond ourselves that often reveals the truth before we’re ready to receive it.
There are so many challenges that come with pursuing the “American Dream” that, in essence, it becomes a suicide mission. What is strong enough to pull us out of encroaching despair and back into the world of the living? The answer will differ for everyone but there is something to be said about ancestral strength revealing itself in times of distress and great need. Those who came before you survived, you will too.
The perils of exploitation and the promise of a better future are embedded within Mati Diop’s 2019 supernatural romantic drama Atlantique. Another story that has become commonplace within a global structure that continues to profit from preying on those whose circumstance have made them indebted to this cycle of mistreatment.
Our main character Ada, played by Mame Bineta Sane, is engaged to be married to a wealthy man but she is carrying on with Souleiman, played by Ibrahima Traoré, a construction worker whose labor on a futuristic tower has not been compensated. Souleiman and his coworkers have decided to seek opportunities in Spain. They depart by boat, leaving Ada and a host of other young women behind, and ride the waves towards a better future.
The film that follows is brilliant and stirring. In the same vein as Nanny, Atlantique explores a tale that has become commonplace amongst many who have made that same treacherous journey across the ocean, seeking a new world of possibilities, through a haunting, supernatural lens.
Love is a powerful force, much like water. It is just as temperamental and all consuming. This is made apparent through an eerie turn after many of the young women whose significant others were on that boat fall ill and succumb to a form of possession. It’s revealed that the men who braved the open waters fell victim to the unpredictable sea and perished, now their spirits inhabit their former lovers and demand the wages they are owed along with graves dug that will hold no bodies.
Diop’s film is entrancing and magical. It offers an alternate reality that allows those who’ve gone missing amongst the waves in pursuit of something more a chance to return and be whole— even if through the bodies of others.
To love is to grieve and what is grief if not a form of possession?
One of the most prolific Pacific Islander films of all time is Once Were Warriors (1995) directed by Lee Tamahori. It’s an unflinching look at a Māori family plagued by domestic and sexual violence whose already delicate balance is thrown into an indefinite tailspin after the suicide of their daughter, a direct result of being raped by a relative. It is just as impactful now as it was then and I believe that Loimata, The Sweetest Tears, directed by Anna Marbrook, is in many ways its spiritual successor.
This documentary follows Sāmoan waka builder and captain Lilo Ema Siope who, amidst a terminal cancer diagnosis, decides to confront the history of abuse and intergenerational trauma within her family. This journey takes them across the seas from Aotearoa back to Sāmoa where the Siope family’s roots begin.
Water becomes a character once again in Ema’s career as a waka builder and captain. Through the art of navigating, she literally builds a new life for herself from the cultural teachings and knowledge from the past. Ema’s greatest voyage comes in the form of this film that challenges a lot of modern taboos within Pacific Island communities globally that shy away from speaking on issues such as incest and other forms of sexual abuse and assault within the home.
The refuge a young Ema initially found in navigating would later be what helped her guide her family towards a place where they could heal together as adults.
The documentary does an incredible job at focusing on Ema and her siblings who bore the brunt of the abuse. It gives the narrative back to the children, to discuss and explore the ways they were affected. What struck me the most about this film was seeing a group of Sāmoan adults, siblings at that, speak so openly about their trauma amongst each other with understanding and empathy, something you can tell as a viewer was hard-fought over the years.
A pivotal moment in the film comes when the siblings have finally found the grave of their great grandmother, in major part thanks to what Ema had seen previously in her dreams. They share an emotional moment, one that overwhelms Ema.
Sāmoans can be incredibly superstitious people, even though Christianity is at this point now extremely widespread. I personally have also experienced firsthand those dreams wherein my ancestors are communicating from the world beyond us.
Ema’s brother, who has his own religious beliefs, does not question or contradict his sister or her visions. Even if faiths differ, there is a level of respect and reverence owed to those who have the gift of sight. This is another instance where ancestral power makes itself known for a greater purpose. Dreams can also be waterways.
To have a single film that explores the complexity of growing up as an indigenous woman is a feat, to have a film that manages to encompass 8 narratives together is something else altogether. Vai was written and directed by 9 Pacific Island women: Becs Arahanga, Amberley Jo Aumua, Matasila Freshwater, Dianna Fuemana, Miria George, Ofa Guttenbeil, Marina McCartney, Nicole Whippy, and Sharon Whippy. It follows the journey of the titular Vai whose story changes shape, cast, and location throughout several island nations.
This film is an achievement for Pacific storytelling and joins Waru (2017), featuring Māori women filmmakers, as another film to prominently and intentionally focus on the voices of Pacific women. When I think about the wealth of stories and talent that our women hold, it gives me all the more hope as a storyteller and filmmaker that we will soon have a variety of other films that can join the ranks of Vai as fully formed representations of Pacific Island women.
Vai translates to “water” in a number of Pacific dialects and just like water, the film follows our titular character as she moves through different stages in her life. The themes present in this film are as familiar as any could be ranging from climate change to cultural inadequacy and even into spaces of struggling in higher education. No matter where Vai goes, her commitment to staying true to herself is paramount.
Vai is also striking in that, though conflict is present, it does not eat up the scenery. The beauty of these women along with their cultures and rituals does not suffer for narrative gain, from young Vai to old Vai, she is able to exist freely and without any expectations assigned to her because, for better or worse, there has not been so many versions of Pacific womanhood presented in this light or magnitude before. It is singular in its place as giving dignity to the majesty of Pacific Island women on screen.
For me, the vignette that brought me to tears starred Fiona Collins as Vai of Sāmoa. Vai of Sāmoa has been away for many years and feels ill-equipped to participate in ceremony. As she dances through her uncertainty, she passes by many graves that line her path.
She is caught off guard by elderly Sāmoan men and women who are also dancing, each directly in front of each grave that she passes. The past merges with the present when we realize that these are the ancestors who rest beneath those stones and Vai is made confident through the knowledge that her ancestors, though gone physically, are always present in the land and in spirit, and envisions them dancing right beside her.
Sometimes the distance between where we are and where we want to be, whether that be physically or culturally, can seem like a gulf— but we will always return to where we are meant to be and if we happen to forget, our heritage will remind us.
There is the quote often used to recognize and affirm the physical and spiritual tether that Pacific people feel to the ocean, by the late and great Teresia Teaiwa “We sweat and cry salt water, so we know that the ocean is really in our blood”
It makes so much sense that for so many cultures who live by the sea, or have a heritage whose genesis involves the ocean, that there will always be an innate pull towards the water.
I’m grateful for the stories that spring from the salt and to have a lineage that is fortified by a connection to the sea. Water can carry us or it can drown us. It can dilute or it can clarify. It can wash things away or dredge them up from the ocean floor. It’s unpredictable, unnerving, and a majority of it remains unexplored.
Here’s to more stories and storytellers who attempt to contextualize its mystery and vastness through their own unique voices.
Oh, and if you live near the ocean, take a swim for me.