Hana Surf Girls portrays a year in the life of Lipoa and Monyca, two female teenage surfers from Hana, Hawaii, a tiny town that is struggling to maintain its heritage while experiencing a hesitation of modernity. The documentary begins with the town’s own amateur surf competition, which Monyca is attending and Lipoa has had to miss now that she is attending her first year of college. The two weigh the pros and cons of professional surfing and sponsorships while attempting to maintain their lifestyle and mentality.
There is no doubt that there is a unique story in Lipoa and Monyca’s lives. However, the voice-over narration from both subjects is tiresome and boring. Their narration has a “Look at me, aren’t I wonderful?” subjectivity. This point of view prevents the real stories from reaching the surface. Lipoa’s first year at college is all too brief, never truly portraying the the metamorphosis that happens in the first year of college.
The most interesting aspects that truly distinguish their experience in a quasi-isolated Hawaiian town are passed over with little exploration. As an example, Monyca reveals that their father, a native of Hana, divorced his wife while suffering from an addiction to meth, an apparent issue in the town. The issue was briefly mentioned and disappeared along with the dissolve that followed it. The passing over of this account is understandable when emotions are a factor. However, there is an important account here. Natives of Hana are held back by this synthetic drug. The issue is not only a local issue, but an issue that spans many native people. In America and Canada there is an epidemic of native people suffering from drug and alcohol addiction. It is a multicultural and multinational issue.
Monyca’s father did overcome his addiction enough to return to the family and return to his roots, an apparent pattern among the natives. His return is the the return to their heritage, a theme of Hana Surf Girls that is discussed often, but never properly placed under the microscope. He builds a traditional hut along the beach, an elderly native man begins to make fishing nets by hand, and an elderly woman teaches traditional hula dances to children. The return to these traditions is a resistance to modernity. This resistance is exemplified by one of the girls explaining that for a long while she had to use the toilet that sits out in the open, with the shower just a few feet away.
This resistance is referred to many times throughout the tiring and boring voice-over narration. When the Hana Surfing Games are shown, it is said to be an event that has no corporate sponsorships and is run entirely by Hana residents with the sole ideal to provide to the community, an aspect that the girls return to too frequently.
Lipoa and Monyca are indeed fantastic surfers, cutting through waves as if they did not exist at all. Their athletic bodies may have been chiseled by the waves themselves. The surfing is beautiful and watching our species conquering the waves is breathtaking. It was my only wish that the cinematography reflect the personal conquering of the waves by the two females in a more perfect, more breathtaking fashion.
Hana Surf Girls director Russ Spencer points to how these two girls matter in their culture. Even with voice-over narration by the two subjects the target falls flat and lingers far too long. The documentary is not risky and never places any of the stories that truly define or challenge the girls’ lives or their home turf in a critical light. The beauty of Hana is reduced only to the favorable opinions of the two girls. If the film dove into the true suffering of the town, the resistance to modernity, the return to heritage, and drug addiction, then Hana Surf Girls would truly invite the viewer to their home. The issues are passed over and the film never gives the impression that the residents overcame these issues themselves.
