Natalie D.C.
With record high temperatures, raging wildfires, and rising sea levels happening all around the globe, it’s no secret that climate change is here and worse than ever before. What many might not be aware of, however, are the lesser-known species who are slowly succumbing to man-made extinction. One such species is a little yellow bird native to the dormant Mauna Kea volcano in Hawai’i—its name is Palila.
Written, animated, and directed by Japanese-American filmmaker Laurie Sumiye, A Paradise Lost (2025) tells the story of the Palila through the own bird’s POV as it stood trial in the 1979 landmark court case Palila v. Hawai’i Department of Land and Natural Resources and continues to survive extinction today. The genre-bending documentary premiered at the 2025 Hawai’i International Film Festival and is set for a limited theatrical release in select U.S. theaters from Blooming Ink Pictures.
The film begins by recounting the origin story of the Palila, rooted in Indigenous folklore and narrated by a bird named Anuenue (voiced by Hawaiian actor Kaipo Schwab) who goes on to become the stuffed lead plaintiff in Palila v. Hawai’i. This opening act, dubbed “Spring,” features a mix of breathtaking cinematography and colorful animation which sets the film apart from other, more typically produced nature documentaries.
From its beginning, A Paradise Lost establishes itself as narrative, mixed-media, and filled to the brim with love for this special bird whose only home and source of nourishment (the māmane tree) is threatened by wild sheep and goats, originally introduced to the environment by uncaring humans. As Anuenue grimly foreshadows, “This paradise would not remain ours forever.”
Unfortunately, this narration, while efficient in acting as a whimsical throughline centering the Palila’s voice, begins to disrupt the film, especially as it explores other subjects’ stories, such as Marjorie Ziegler, the daughter of the 1979 court case’s co-plaintiff, as well as a team of young Indigenous conservationists determined to save the Palila from extinction. Other experts are consulted throughout the film but, without exploring these peoples’ own backgrounds and connections to the Palila, their voices become white noise, padding the film’s 90-minute runtime without offering any memorable insight.
A strength of the documentary is its centering of Indigenous voices, particularly those most impacted by the Palila’s critical endangerment. During the “Autumn” act, conservationists struggle to get the government to free the Hawaiian honeycreeper’s home from wild sheep decades after courts ruled in its favor; meanwhile, hunters who rely on those very same sheep to feed their families protest a mass slaughter. This back-and-forth between conservationists versus hunters and non-native versus native species is one of the most interesting aspects of the film, and could’ve been the narrative’s sole focus if not for its fast-paced insistence on exploring other, less developed perspectives, a choice that ultimately weighs down the story.
Despite a rushed beginning and a bloated middle, A Paradise Lost crafts a speculative, yet radically optimistic ending with an animated sequence that inspires hope for future generations as they continue to conserve the Palila and its story. A more nonlinearly-structured film could’ve begun its story here, in a colorful future where a curious little girl seeks to learn more about this little yellow bird native to Hawai’i, weaving through the narrative unburdened by the restraints of time and space.
As it stands, the film is nontraditional in its style, yet traditional in its substance, a decision that prevents it from truly achieving greatness. Still, this is an undoubtedly gorgeous documentary that deserves to be seen as it spotlights the little-known Palila bird and seeks to answer important questions pertaining to its survival—“What are the legal rights of nature? What species has the right to exist?”)—questions that are more pertinent than ever as we grow closer to an irreversible climate crisis.
