Tavake

I saw this short student film at the 2005 Zaki Gordon Film Festival and I was extremely impressed. Although it does display all the inescapably low-grade aspects of a no-budget student thesis short (i.e. bad picture quality and lack-luster performances), Tavake is a beautifully crafted film that is both touching and culturally informative. I was constantly surprised by how Tavake could make a story about the cultural and generational gaps between a father and son in Tonga so universally relevant to a born-and-raised American such as myself. Although expectedly flawed, this first outing by director Paul Stoll really shows the shimmering roots of a potentially masterful filmmaker whose heartwarming gift for storytelling and gracefully slow pace would be a refreshing change-of-pace to silver screens everywhere.