Mona Maria and David Newell in 1934’s White Heat, aka Cane Fire (Cinema Guild)

Walking a tightrope between whimsy and outrage, this incisive documentary delves into the past and troubling present day of Kaua’i, Hawaii. It opens with a montage of scenes from some 100-plus movies that have been filmed on the tropical island that have always centered on White characters.

But this time, each clip has been cropped or edited so the focus is on a background figure or extra, the type of role that tended to be played by a local hired by the film productions. In effect, Kaua’i natives are now the central protagonists. This serves as the guiding principle of director Anthony Banua-Simon: to let the people of Kaua’i tell their own story for a change, even if the results are decidedly less sunny than nearly anything ever shot on location. (The filmmaker has familial connections to the island, although he was raised in Seattle.)

The film traces the island’s history as far back as its first contact with British explorer James Cook in 1778. From the start, Western agricultural firms sought to pillage natural resources and exploit workers, starting with the indigenous peoples and gradually expanding to imported laborers from China, Japan, the Philippines, and more. Hollywood film productions eventually arrived during the 1950s. To hear that period discussed by those who witnessed it firsthand, including Banua-Simon’s great uncle, Henry Bermoy, it was often more tedium than glamour.

Moreover, according to the filmmakers, the boom in film productions was engineered by big business with the cooperation of movie studios. The goal was to promote an image of tropical beauty and all-too-happy-to-serve native Hawaiians, the better to distract from reports of harsh working conditions on sugar and pineapple plantations, as well as undermine the burgeoning worker’s rights movement.

One of the most fascinating moments of the film involves seeing the actual notes from the Motion Picture Association of America to writer/director Lois Weber for her 1934 film White Heat (aka Cane Fire), which was set on a Kaua’i sugar plantation. Among the MPAA’s demands was the removal of a pivotal scene in which a worker sets a fire to the setting, lest it inspire such acts in real life.

Banua-Simon meticulously explains how the same corporations that initially exploited the natives and later undermined the labor movement never left Kaua’i, but became more deeply entrenched, thanks to various mergers with shipping companies and real estate developers. He pays special attention to Alexander & Baldwin, a firm that employed multiple generations of his family, cutting to a dark title card with the corporation’s logo whenever there is an encounter with one of its subsidiaries. In this way, viewers are put in a similar mental space as those who live on the island, by becoming aware that a select few entities have such significant power.

Connections are also drawn between the growth in tourism that big business facilitated and the subsistence-level existence of the average Kaua’i resident today. Beachfront houses are strictly reserved for outsiders—specifically, rich White retirees and speculative investors—due to skyrocketing property values. Banua-Simon is thorough in highlighting how economic disenfranchisement is widespread regardless of age. He profiles a cross section that includes elders who had worked in agribusiness as well as the younger set, who work menial jobs and struggle to make rent.

Many scenes are scored to eerie bells and chimes that provide a fitting dystopian vibe. The whole outlook is pretty bleak, but there is some hope as those who were previously voiceless now have one, thanks to the Internet. A recurring story line involves the site of the former Coco Palms Hotel, a popular tourist spot immortalized by Elvis Presley in Blue Hawaii (1961) until it was destroyed by a hurricane in 1992. It becomes a flashpoint between local activists/squatters looking to rehabilitate what they view as sacred land versus real estate developers looking to resurrect a tourist trap with name recognition. The latter order local police to intimidate and remove the protestors, but the trespassers are at least able to get their own message out via social media posts.

This particular narrative culminates with ongoing lawsuits, a court appearance, and the possible promise of justice that the activists’ grandparents and great grandparents could have only dreamed of. But even if it doesn’t work out, the film’s darkly funny denouement offers a second option for catharsis: watching clips of some lesser-known titles shot on Kaua’i in which islanders get revenge on the tourists, plantations, and canneries.