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Documentary Review: Kelly Loves Tony (1998) by Spencer Nakasako

A different take on the "American Dream'

A production of the Center for Asian American Media in association with the Independent Television Service, “” is a take on documentary co-creation, since the two “subjects”, seventeen-year-old Kelly Saeteurn and her fiancee Tony took as much part in the shooting of the film as director

Kelly Loves Tony is streaming on OVID.tv

Seventeen-year-old Kelly Saeteurn is a lu Mien refugee from Laos, and the first member of her family to have graduated from high school, on her way to college. At the same time, Kelly is in a loving relationship with Tony Saelio, also a Laotian, and a junior high school drop-out and ex-con, and eventually, she becomes pregnant. Somewhere between necessity and lu Mien tradition, she has to move in his family's house, where she hopes his parents can help her with raising the baby while she studies. The reality, however, proves rather different, particularly since Tony also has to face the danger of deportation. 

Spencer Nakasako, with the help of his two protagonists, creates a rather realistic portrayal of intense love clashing with a the rather harsh reality of immigrants in the US, and among a couple that share feelings and a common ancestry, but at the same time, are world aparts in terms of how they dream their future lives. The discussions Tony  has with his boss highlight this aspect quite clearly, as we hear the latter repeatedly insisting that Kelly is ‘school material” and Tony is not. As the movie progresses, and with the deportation trial hanging over their heads like a Damocles Sword, the pressure piles up, particularly since Kelly is not receiving the help she expected from her parents-in-law, who, despite not appearing in the documentary, seem to not like her particularly. 

All the while, however, the love the two share is rather obvious, even during their fights, whom Nakasako has captured in brutal honesty, obviously having gained their trust completely. As these contradictory aspects of their relationship come to the fore as thoroughly as possible, the narrative of the movie changes towards a question regarding the whether the two will manage to get over their differences and their particular situations in order to stay together, in an aspect that retains interest for the majority of the economical 60 minutes of its duration. 

At the same time, however, the documentary shows its age quite significantly, with the home video visuals appearing particularly amateurish in the age of HD video, while the rather personal nature of the story makes it really hard to empathize with the protagonists after a fashion, particularly for the viewers who do not share the rather specific problems they do. 

Furthermore, despite the fact that the difficulties to retain a relationship and the immigration issues, which are essentially the main topics of the documentary, are always timely, the overall approach seems somewhat outdated, since the world has changed significantly from 1998 when the film initially screened.

“Kelly Loves Tony” has a retro kind of appeal, also deriving from its intensely realistic premises, but, at the same time, remains a film that, nowadays, will only appeal to a very specific audience, and definitely not to the average viewer or even film buff for that matter. 

About the author

Panos Kotzathanasis

My name is Panos Kotzathanasis and I am Greek. Being a fan of Asian cinema and especially of Chinese kung fu and Japanese samurai movies since I was a little kid, I cultivated that love during my adolescence, to extend to the whole of SE Asia.

Starting from my own blog in Greek, I then moved on to write for some of the major publications in Greece, and in a number of websites dealing with (Asian) cinema, such as Taste of Cinema, Hancinema, EasternKicks, Chinese Policy Institute, and of course, Asian Movie Pulse. in which I still continue to contribute.

In the beginning of 2017, I launched my own website, Asian Film Vault, which I merged in 2018 with Asian Movie Pulse, creating the most complete website about the Asian movie industry, as it deals with almost every country from East and South Asia, and definitely all genres.

You can follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

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