Rowan Sullivan

Vai Film Difficulty Ranking: 2

Why Watch Vai?

• For a collection of 8 short films set across the Pacific Islands
• See a shared indigenous Pacific Islander experience
• It’s a powerful feminist tribute, featuring 8 women, and directed by 9

From: Cook Islands, Fiji, New Zealand, Niue, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Australasia
Watch: Trailer, Amazon Prime, Tubi, JustWatch
Next: Whale Rider, Boyhood, The Orator

a collection of short films

Vai is a collection of eight short films made by 9 women which takes place across seven different countries (Fiji, Tonga, Solomon Islands, New Zealand, Kuki Airani, Samoa, and Niue). The titular character, Vai, is played by eight different indigenous women aging from 6 to 80.

Another interesting thing to note before watching is that ‘Vai’ translates as ‘water’ in each of the countries named above. Water is an integral part of the story. It surrounds each of the islands, which isolates each community, making traveling between islands harder. It’s ability to provide food is threatened as companies infringe on and overfish in traditional fishing waters. Drinking water is also rare and hoarded by the privileged. Most importantly, it gives life, both spiritually (as in the final short) and physically.

“We sweat and cry salt water, so we know that the ocean is really in our blood”

Teresia Teaiwa

A Common Indigenous Experience

Vai’s journey is played by 8 different indigenous actresses across 7 different countries and 8 different ages. In the first short, Vai is a 6 year old girl in Fiji, and the film progresses until the final short shows her as an 80 year old woman in Aeotara (New Zealand). By shooting Vai’s journey with different actresses across different countries, Vai creates a common indigenous Pacific Islander experience.

One common theme is the cycle of leaving and returning. In the first three shorts, Vai lives without her mother or father, as they’ve been forced to travel to New Zealand to try and provide for their family. In the fourth, Vai has already left Samoa and is studying in New Zealand. The final four films feature an older Vai that has returned to home. She returns and has to relearn the traditional ways she has forgotten. Whilst she regains her community, her younger relatives leave their homes just as she did, repeating the cycle of coming and going.

(Insert analogy comparing the coming and going of the people and tradition to the coming and going of the sea tides).

A Life Well Lived

The Pacific Islander experience may be new to some viewers, however, the experience of life is much more universal. It’s scope reminded me a little bit of Linklater’s Boyhood, except here the scope is much larger. Instead of focusing on a child from 8 years old to 18, Vai follows a woman across a whole lifetime. In doing so it encapsulates the entire experience of life in 90 minutes. When you’re watching Vai as an 80 year old, the memories of the shorts of Vai as a 6 and 13 year old are still clear in your head which allows us to enter Vai’s old age with a greater understanding of where she came from. These are memories that we often lose touch of once we hit adulthood in our own lives. Showing it all in one film lets us see life repeating itself and allows us to better empathize with Vai as an older woman.

What to Watch Next

If you’re after more indigenous stories from the Pacific Islands, check out Whale Rider, The Orator, Waru, or even Tanna. For too crossover films you could also check out Hunt for the Wilderpeople and Rabbit Proof Fence.

Or, if you’re looking for more films which follow a single character across different ages, I’d strongly recommend checking out Boyhood and Moonlight. They’re two great U.S. films about growing up.