Act of War: The Overthrow of the Hawaiian Nation - Reaction Post

The information-rich documentary, Act of War, portrays a highly controversial viewpoint of the induction of Hawaii into the United States of America. To an outsider, with little to no knowledge of the history of or bias towards the nationalism of the US, this film is just like any other well-made historical documentary.

There was an effort made to capture the audience’s attention and sustain it throughout the film, as well as a variety of clever film techniques that kept it from being unbearably dry and monotonous, even to the least historically fascinated types of people.

Personally, I appreciated the variety between film, images (historical, modern, and drawn), interviews, and reenactments – not only the variety, but the frequency with which the variety was employed. No one person spoke for longer than a few minutes, and even then, the screen would switch between the speaker, b-roll, and other images. At times it felt like watching a traditional film, with a narrator explaining the action on screen.

However, despite the use of intriguing film-making techniques, the nature of the film is still decidedly contentious. The information was portrayed from the viewpoint of the native Hawaiians, many of whom felt less than excited about the United States government interfering with their land and their customs. Because of factors like extreme population decrease, disease, and general destruction towards their way of life, the makers of this film justify their feelings of hatred towards the overthrow of their kingdom. This by default makes the US ‘the bad guys’ - a role, while arguably deserved, is not one that most Americans take too kindly to being assigned, especially by some of their own constituents.

This film could be shocking to many who either don’t know the history of Hawaii’s induction, or have simply never heard a version of the story from such a point of view - even invoking an apologetic response from the president at the time of the film's release.

Despite the content, however, the film was expertly made and was well researched and historically accurate - the only realistic negative response that could come from it, is hurt feelings.