Directed by Dawn Mikkelson and Keri Pickett, in the dead of a Minnesota winter right before the world shut down for a global pandemic, Asian drumming divas from around the world met to perform, smash gender roles, and redefine power on their own terms. Starring: Tiffany Tamaribuchi, Kaoly Asano, Chieko Kojima, Megan Chao-Smith and Jennifer Weir.
The best way to describe Finding Her Beat might be that it’s a film of two parts, one of them shows the difficulties and organisation it takes to plan a big concert, and the other is the music and camaraderie. Unfortunately, the latter is much stronger but it takes quite a while to arrive to its more electrifying and highly entertaining performances, leaving it struggling in the meantime.
Although, they may not be its strongest scenes, the earlier portion of the film does still build a lovely supportive and appreciative atmosphere. It’s a lovely thing to see how much these women dedicate themselves to the artform of Taiko, and how each of them connect to the culture, even if they didn’t grow up around it. Seeing them come from such different backgrounds but connect over their passion for drumming is sweet.
However, it does feel like it gets slightly lost in the details, following how the pandemic shuttered their production and threw up endless obstacles. It’s certainly relevant to their journey, but feels like it didn’t need to take up as much of the runtime as it was given. It alters the energy at work, making it almost bureaucratic, which compared to the vivacious, inspiring energy that it holds in the end, is hugely imbalanced.
Similar could be said of the directorial style of Dawn Mikkelson and Keri Pickett, in the beginning it’s very casual, following a typical observer style. Mikkelson and Pickett simply let things play out naturally but when it arrives at their performances, the style becomes more involved. It takes on the high energy of the performers, adding in a lot of movement to capture their passion and physicality.
Finding Her Beat starts off on rocky footing but eventually discovers its true rhythm. It’s a shame that the entire film doesn’t embody the energy from its final scenes as they have so much passion and inspiration to offer. Watching these women fully in their element, the joy on their faces is genuinely moving but the hour long build up to it, getting stuck in the details, holds the back from fulfilling its potential. There’s a great idea and worthy subject, it just wasn’t quite put together in the most effective manner.
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