If there is one documentary about Kauai you must see, it’s “The Edge of Paradise.”
And tonight, 7:30 at Porter Pavilion at Anaina Hou Community Park in Kilauea, you have a chance to do just that. Don’t miss it. The $15 you’ll spend to see this high-definition film written and produced by Kauai’s John Wehrheim is a deal.
Here’s why.
This film introduces you to people who lived, for different lengths of time, at what was referred to as Taylor Camp. From 1969 to 1977 it was a place where a definitely unique (some would say that’s a nice way to put it) collection of men, women and children lived on the North Shore in tree houses and more. They studied, surfed and swam. They partied. They worked. They made friends. They made enemies. They were running from something. Or perhaps they were just running to find a better life. Only they know if they found it. But, eventually, this paradise came to an end.
Here is how it is described by its makers:
“In 1969 Howard Taylor, brother of actress Elizabeth, bails out a rag-tag band of young Mainlanders jailed for vagrancy and invites them on his oceanfront land. Soon, waves of hippies, surfers and troubled Vietnam vets find their way to this clothing-optional, pot-friendly, tree house village at the end of the road of Kauai’s North Shore — ultimate hippies’ fantasy, order without rules, perched in a pristine forest alongside a tropical beach in paradise … until the locals decide it’s time for them to go.”
It was in 1971 when John Wehrheim took his first photos of this tree-house community in Haena. His photos captured a life unlike anything we’ll ever see again on Kauai. Through his camera, he tells a story that will simply have you shaking your head. Unbelievable. People lived like this? Yes. They had this kind of freedom? Yes. They lived without worrying about electric bills? Yes. They were happy? Yes. It makes you wish you had been there, just to be part of it for even a short time. It makes you wish you could go back in time and live it. To test it for yourself. To try something that seemed crazy. You can’t, but “Edge of Paradise” takes you there.
His interviews with people who were there are perhaps the most amazing. They tell you what you don’t know. The good and the bad. They are blunt interviews. People spoke their minds and Wehrheim listened. This life, while seemingly one about paradise, had its problems. People paid a price to be there. Some stayed only a short time, coming and going without notice. Others stuck around and even stayed after the camp was closed. Because eventually locals, not entirely tolerant of young people living free and easy from the mainland, said “enough is enough, we want this camp of freeloaders and troublemakers gone.”
But when you listen to those who were there, it’s clear their memories are of a special time in their life in a place only a handful shared. They would not give those days up at Taylor Camp for all the money in the world. Some would argue Taylor Camp’s influence is still felt on Kauai. Perhaps it is.
Wehrheim’s film is well done. It is beautifully put together. And, really, he is the only man who could have told this story, because he was there. He saw it. He met the people of Taylor Camp. He spoke to them, spent time with them. He got to know them. He felt the spirit that lived there. He knew he had to record what he witnessed. We’re glad he did. It would be four decades before his project to tell the story of Taylor Camp was finished.
Well worth the wait.
Wehrheim makes it clear in his film, Taylor Camp was not paradise. But there were times it came close.
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Bill Buley, editor-in-chief, can be reached at 245-0457 or bbuley@thegardenisland.com.
