Review: Reel Paradise

When indie filmmaker John Pierson has a midlife crisis, he really takes it seriously. Pierson, burnt out on the world of indie film, decided to take a year off to live on Taveuni the most remote island in Fiji, showing free movies at a theater called the 180 Meridian Cinema. To make things even more fun, Pierson took his family - wife Janet and teens Georgia and Wyatt - along for the ride, and invited a film crew to record the last month of the family's adventure. The result, Reel Paradise, is an entertaining, though at times frustrating, documentary.

Pierson is, at times, really annoying to watch. His brash American pushiness, which he refuses to at all modify in light of the culture he is visiting for a year, grated on my nerves, so I can just imagine how he felt to the natives he was living among. The man has an enormous ego, and his lack of awareness of how he is perceived by the people he has come to live among is really kind of fascinating. He's like his own Catholic Church, bringing the gospel of film to the heathen, formerly cannibalistic masses.

Pierson's wife, Janet, fares somewhat better. She, at least, has the empathy and personality to win over the locals, taking a genuine interest in their lives, and trying, albeit in that condescending, anthropological, "I'm-only-living-here-a-year-and-then-it's-back-to-my-luxury-home" manner, to learn about their culture. The most genuine of the Pierson tribe are the kids, Georgia and Wyatt, who quickly endear themselves to the Fijians by taking on the ways of the village children and trying to learn the language.

The Pierson children assimilate much more quickly to the very different culture of their Fijian village than their parents. TV, malls, and their normal Western lives quickly become a thing of the past, as the kids make friends with the Fijian kids and learn to spend their days playing in island streams, roaming around the village, and going to the local school.

The locals think of the Piersons as very wealthy - after all, they are showing free movies, which is unheard of in this remote village. Prior to John Pierson operating the 180 Meridian Cinema, most of these people had never been able to afford to go to a movie. Pierson made movies accessible to everyone, equalizing the society of this rural Fijian village in a way that it has probably never seen before or since, and not everyone liked it.

The priest at the local Catholic church, for instance, questions whether Pierson is doing this for the Fijians or himself. The church has worked hard to educate the natives about church and capitalist principles, including the concept that "there's no such thing as a free lunch", and Pierson flies in the face of those teachings by equalizing access to movies for everyone, regardless of their financial and societal status.

All is not paradise in the Piersons' year in this breathtakingly beautiful country. One night while the family is at the theater showing free movies, their rented home is robbed, for the second time since they've lived there. Janet's laptop and other computer equipment are stolen, and John Pierson is seriously pissed. You can almost feel his outrage and indignation burn through the screen at you, as he rants about the unfairness of people stealing from them while they're showing free movies. He's righteously angry; not just that their house was broken into, but because he feels he's bringing these people a great gift in showing free movies for a year, and he just can't believe that someone would take advantage of them being at the theater to break into their house and steal their stuff.

Janet, on the other hand, seems bewildered and hurt, and also vulnerable because they don't know who broke into their house, and it could be anyone. Could it be someone they see every day, someone they consider a friend, who is stealing from them? Could it be Sia, their cook? Her boyfriend, a drug dealer who makes ominous threats involving knives and blood against their Australian landlord? Their landlord, who seems to have a bit of a drinking problem, and who has had clashes with John?

There are also some issues with Georgia and her friendship with Miriama, a Fijian girl. Miriama clearly looks up to her American friend; she is amazed at how Georgia talks back to her parents, and at Georgia's sense of freedom and independence. Georgia wears fewer clothes than anyone else - even if by American standards, she's dressed quite modestly in her tank tops and long boy shorts - and she is definitely, by Fijian standards, a wild child. She hangs out with boys, she gets a tattoo, she ditches school, taking Miriama with her. In a lot of ways, Georgia is a lot like her father, in that she is unwilling to let go of her American sense of how a teenager should behave in order to fit into Fijian culture. She doesn't "get" it.

When the girls ditch school, nothing much happens to Georgia, but Miriama is suspended for two weeks. Janet tries to make Georgia understand the position her choices are putting her friend in. "You're leaving in a few weeks and going back to your American life," Janet, exasperated, yells at her wayward daughter. "Miriama has to live here after you leave." Georgia doesn't seem to understand that her actions with Miriama, while they seem innocent enough to her now, will have a lasting effect on her friend.

The most frustrating element of the film is the Pierson children and their parents relationship to them. Georgia and Wyatt are smart, funny, and very often more perceptive than their parents. Wyatt understands much sooner than John that the locals will respond better to movies with lots of physical humor than to deep, thoughtful indie flicks. When John complains that the film Jackass has no plot, Wyatt shoots back, "I'm glad it doesn't have a plot. If it had a plot it would suck!"

But the Pierson's wishy-washiness over disciplining their kids is also a little wearing. These kids mouth off and say whatever they want, whenever they want - at least with their parents. Wyatt seems to get along great with the parents of his Fijian friends, so one must surmise that when in their homes, he behaves the way he sees his friends behave. But on his home turf, Wyatt has no difficulty letting his father know when he thinks he's stupid. Janet rambles on about how you can't control another person's sex life, and about her own wild teenage days, and then goes off on a thing about how she doesn't feel like the "parent". As the parent of a teenage daughter, I can certainly empathize with Janet's plight, but I still wanted to reach through the screen, grab her by her shirt collar and yell, "Just discipline your kids, for Pete's sake!”

By the end of their stay, John seems eager to get the hell off the island, Janet seems worn out, and the kids don't want to go. I was so intrigued by the Pierson's island adventure, I wasn't ready for them to go yet either. I almost wish they would have decided to stay on the island, and then John Pierson could have made another documentary five years hence about how their kids turned out being raised away from shopping malls and swimming pools. I felt bad for the locals, too. After a year of being the beneficiaries of free movies at the 180 Meridian Cinema, it's back to being the poor natives who never get to go to the movies again, and somehow, it doesn't seem fair to provide this level of societal equalization for a year and then just snatch it away.

John Pierson has offered the keys to the 180 Meridian Cinema at film festivals to anyone interested in reopening it. Here's hoping that someone else reopens the "the world's most remote movie theater" and brings free movies back to the people of Taveuni.