It’s an article of faith in American culture that hardworking immigrants can come to this country and eventually improve their lot in life. But what if the fruits of all that labor is treading economic water at best or getting further into an economic hole at worst? Karla Murthy’s (hereafter “Karla”) Centerpiece Documentary “The Gas Station Attendant” is a personal portrait of such a hardworking immigrant. The titular subject also happens to be the filmmaker’s father. Yet why does the filmmaker’s relationship with her dad devolve from daily check-ins to her ghosting her father for long periods of time?
H.N. Shantha Murthy (hereafter “H.N.”), the filmmaker’s father, has worked jobs ranging from aerospace engineer to Indian restaurant owner to the titular job. Yet contrary to the usual stereotypes, his working hard has not led to long-term success. As the filmmaker documents her father’s life, her own mixed feelings about the nature of the American Dream soon play a role.
H.N.’s life might be described as a living sine wave. He’s lived through peaks of prosperity such as having a father who worked in a bank and who could afford to have his son learn English. But he’s also endured such hardships as living on the street. A lucky encounter of a few hours would result in H.N. going to America and meeting his future wife. But as his daughter’s film shows, that stroke of luck didn’t necessarily translate into long-term prosperity. So why didn’t he simply give up?
The short answer would be “H.N. chose to not give up a long time ago.” Specifically, his anecdote about his nearly deciding to drown himself at a truly low point in his life on the street shows how he turned down such an opportunity for personal surrender.
When Karla introduces the viewer to H.N., he’s working the late shift at a gas station. It’s a way to pay some of the bills for his slowly failing brick and mortar jewelry store operation. As far as H.N. is concerned, the extra job’s money also provides economic breathing room until a final decision is made. The father may regard this current situation as part of life’s vicissitudes. Yet Karla’s reaction feels a bit more jaundiced. She shudders at her father’s living down to the notorious stereotype in “The Simpsons” of Apu, the East Asian store clerk. Could this negative reaction be connected to her less than enthused reaction on seeing a couple of New York City blocks packed with Indian restaurants competing with one another?
The definitely unforgettable part of “The Gas Station Attendant” can be attributed to the stories H.N. tells about his past. Particularly life-changing was his encounter with the Renos. They were a white American couple from Houston, Texas making an overnight stay at the hotel H.N. worked at. The service H.N. provided so impressed the couple that they sponsored H.N.’s emigration to the U.S. It would be during that sponsorship that H.N. married the Filipina woman who would become his first wife. Tragically, that woman would later die during childbirth, so he eventually married another Filipina woman.
Yes, this means Karla and her siblings are Indian -Filipina children. Karla’s marriage to a man who is neither Indian nor Filipino will definitely be a source for complicated conversations with the children they have regarding cultural heritage.
That realization also points to an unintended shortcoming of this film. This writer wanted Karla to have more of a presence in this documentary. The broad strokes of her relationship with her father is laid out well, particularly during the New Orleans craft fair section. Yet “The Gas Station Attendant” seems to lack the critical element of Karla’s own reflections. Once it’s established in the film that she’s more than just an observer, her perspective should have expanded with more personal detail, even if they weren’t as colorful as H.N.’s memories. Did Karla fear, for example, that her professional career would ape that of her father? How anxious was she about being stuck in a financial hole worse than just having unpaid student loans?
On the other hand, a sequence with Karla involving a rediscovery of an old model of the Taj Mahal turns out to be emotionally effective. Her changing views on the model, from romanticization to wanting to return it to storage, feels symbolic of her changing attitudes towards her father. She may say she’s focusing on her growing family first. Yet her prolonged ghosting of her father also speaks to her anger upon discovering H.N. financially betrayed her.
Still, family is family, and the emergency which brings Karla back to see H.N. makes the long-term holding of grudges feel petty. It doesn’t hurt to wonder, though, how H.N. was financially able to bounce back from his several business failures to make another stab at developing a thriving business.
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What does “The Nutcracker” have in common with the Confederate battle flag? Both have defenders who whitewash its blatant racist associations as history. Yet seeing a picture of the famed ballet’s so-called “Chinese dancer” caused this writer to nope out of any desire to see a performance of this ballet. The dancer’s outfit of coolie hat, aristocrat’s long beard and absurd caricatured mustache might as well be a visual way of declaring “I don’t care about getting Chinese culture wrong.”
Given that “The Nutcracker” is a cultural gateway drug to get people interested in ballet, is there another option for Asians curious about ballet to do more than silently grit their teeth while watching a performance of Tchaikovsky’s classic work? Choreographer Phil Chan and ballerina Georgina “Gina” Pazcoguin launched a campaign called “Last Bow For Yellow Face” to search for solutions. The story of their efforts is recounted in Jennier Lin’s documentary “About Face: Disrupting Ballet.”
“Disrupting ballet” describes the perception of Chan and Pazcoguin’s campaign among more conservative ballet fans. It’s treated as an anti-white people suggestion, which is the feeling behind an idiotic jibe about removing white swans from “Swan Lake.” The “don’t watch it if it offends you” comment has a little more weight to it, except that this attitude leaves out of luck ballet fans who prefer art which doesn’t accept treating people such as them as “less than others.”.
The truly pathetic thing about the stereotypes conservative ballet fans are defending is that they’re not even accurate. For example, Chinese dance choreographer Annie Au shows that a classical ballet which purported to have a Chinese dance sequence had only one correct part: the fan.
The irony of the hostility to the “Last Bow For Yellow Face” campaign is that the campaign’s opponents refuse to recognize that the campaign’s supporters are ballet fans. But they want this art form to grow and find new audiences without works relying on putting others down. Chan, for example, admires the beauty and poetry of “La Bayadere.” His re-imagining, “Stars On The Rise,” keeps Marius Petipa’s original choreography and Ludwig Minkus’ music but drops the original’s Orientalist claptrap.
Historical preservation is a laudable goal. But the people who support preserving racial stereotyping in ballet for “historical reasons” never go into detail on why such hateful attitudes deserve preservation for casual viewers. It’s certainly not for the benefit of those being culturally insulted.
It’s heartening to see agreement with Chan and Pazcoguin’s campaign from such folks as ballet dancer Misty Copeland and Inverness Ballet Artistic Director Chris Hampson. But Pazcoguin is personally aware of the possible professional price of speaking out. She could possibly get demoted or professionally sidelined. Her income is dependent on continuing to be employed by the New York Ballet Company.
Chan and Pazcoguin have no illusions about their campaign being a long term project. But seeing the talent displayed in accurate examples of Asian dance makes the project worth pursuing.
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Turning a tryout of a showroom sample into the frantic waving of relationship red flags turns out to be one of the chilling moments of Patrick Tam’s restored Hong Kong New Wave film “Love Massacre.” Even though the movie’s cited as a change in direction for then future HK film legend Brigittte Lin, this viewer found it an uneven attempt at mixing art film and slasher movie.
Joy takes boyfriend Louie’s prospective career move to New York City spectacularly badly by trying to commit suicide. Her roommate Ivy (Lin) gets Joy’s brother Chu Chung to come from Hong Kong to San Francisco to visit his sister as a morale booster. Things soon turn hot and heavy between Ivy and Chu Chung. But that may not be the wisest of developnments….
William Chang’s art direction does indeed provide the primary point of viewer interest in “Love Massacre.” There are several startling images such as the art gallery with abstract minimalist paintings and the mountain of cigarette boxes on a marital bed. The rooftop finale may use a simple setup yet its startling visual boldness gives the film a last heft it generally fails to display.
Some exterior shots such as a cable car ride supposedly create the illusion of the story’s setting of late 1970s – early 1980s San Francisco. Yet the majority of the film makes clear this City By The Bay is Toronto District San Francisco. In other words, its many non-San Francisco images will mentally push regular San Franciscans out of “Love Massacre”’s world. Or does Los Angeles’ famed La Cienega Boulevard truly stretch all the way up to the San Francisco Bay Area?
The lack of San Francisco authenticity might not be a deal breaker given the film’s original audience probably wouldn’t pay attention to such details. But “Love Massacre”’s bigger problem is its inability to justify the relationship between Ivy and Chu Chung beyond the rationale of “because the plot requires it.” Seeing a body towel-clad Ivy engage in heavy kissing with Chu Chung (Hong Kong film’s version of R-rated sex) comes across as premature rather than plausible. This viewer at least couldn’t see any basis on which Ivy became fascinated by Chu Chung. Yet Ivy’s self-denial that the man she loves is actually a homicidal whackjob is the engine that’s supposed to drive the film’s drama.
While Chu Chung’s homicidal rampage in the film’s last third is fairly predictable, points should be awarded for the death by Murphy bed moment. Too bad the rest of the film doesn’t succeed at much else.
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The ranks of notable “search for a family’s roots” documentaries have increased by one with the arrival of Colette Ghunim’s personal documentary “Traces Of Home.” Besides that physical search, the CAAMFest Closing Night Film also tells a powerful story about the family legacy created by historical trauma.
The Ghunim family consists of: Iza, a Mexican accountant mother; Hosni, a Palestinian wedding photographer father; Ramsey, the son and older brother; and Colette, the filmmaker. Yet this is far from a happy family. Iza and Hosni are emotionally running away from their pasts. Colette’s in a permanent state of anger towards Iza. Ramsey has his own personal ghosts.
A vacation to visit Iza and Hosni’s family birthplaces will do more than take the Ghunim family to Palestine and Mexico. It will allow the nuclear Ghunim family members to face long-buried regrets and resentments.
Culturally conservative viewers may not understand why the Ghunims need to make this trip. They had spent years living a prototypical American suburban life in Schaumberg, Illinois. The parents wanted their children to go all in on living as Americans. Ramsey did just that with his not thinking much about his parents’ background and just playing a lot of Mortal Kombat. Colette’s studies abroad in Latin America and Egypt made her curious about Iza and Hosni’s personal history and to eventually instigate the roots trip.
This project winds up being a safe place for Iza and Hosni to finally talk to their children about their traumatic past. Hosni is the son of a prosperous leather merchant. His comfortable life in the Palestinian mountain town of Safed changed for the worse when the Nakba resulted in his family being among the town’s Palestinian residents forcibly expelled outside Israel’s borders. Iza’s mother Conchita had hoped to escape an oppressive life under her grandmother’s thumb by marrying the far older Benjamin. But Conchita’s husband turned out to be extremely physically violent, particularly after drinking a lot (which he did regularly). So Conchita fled with Iza and her siblings to the United States to start a new life.
The Ghunim children also wind up talking on camera about their past traumas. Ramsey suffered from depression and had a drinking problem. While away at college, Colette developed an overeating disorder.
In recounting her parents’ search for their ancestral homes, the director gives equal weight in visual pacing to their quests. For example, “Traces Of Home” follows Hosni, aided by Palestinian researchers, as he reaches one stage of his hunt before cutting to pursue the next stage of Iza’s search. Yet finding Iza’s ancestral homes seems a comparatively easier task as her family didn’t have to deal with a government actively trying to erase her ancestors’ existence.
To borrow a line from a different context, stories about the Nakba never have happy endings. Hosni’s hunt has bittersweet results, particularly since he was about four when the Nakba arrived at Safed. On the other hand, encountering and interacting with other Palestinians winds up opening up Hosni as a person. Instead of being reserved and hiding behind a camera to keep the world at a distance, he’s relaxed enough to do a bit of clowning in front of Colette’s camera.
Iza’s reconnecting with the life she left behind when she fled to America has far happier results. Colette winds up being astounded by her mother’s extended family and the combination tailoring business and apartment building owned by her great-grandfather. But what truly touches the director is her mother abandoning her all too familiar icy silence to confess on camera about her failures as a mother.
This cathartic journey into the family past is not a totally grim affair. The tale of how Hosni and Iza met each other and eventually married will bring a smile to any viewers who are not simpatico with the Orange Dementia Patient’s nativist policy advisor Stephen Miller. Desperation, a date who flaked, and a facility with Spanish each play roles in this story.
Hosni’s home videos help bring “Traces of Home” to life. Not only are they a treasure trove of information about the Ghunims’ American suburban life, but they’re also instructive for what they can’t show of the director’s personal inner life.
One of the film’s intriguing elements occurs towards the end. “Traces Of Home” rejects the typical Hollywood ending best described as “OK, Colette now knows her parents’ roots so it’s time to celebrate.” What the director does instead displays both her honesty and her willingness to be vulnerable in front of the camera. These may not be qualities that will necessarily better her fortunes in the commercial filmmaking world. But these qualities will make her at least a very good filmmaker when she’s able to harness them.
Colette Ghunim should be given further opportunities to display her cinematic talents. If Hosni was denied realizing his dream of becoming an American film director, at least Colette has shown with this powerful documentary that she well deserves her shot.
(The previously reviewed “Forge” won the 2026 CAAMFest Narrative Award.
(“Traces Of Home” shared an Honorable Mention in the 2026 CAAMFest Documentary Award. The film will also be distributed in some way by Watermelon Pictures.)
