Talking mimes, angry shop owners, warring politicos and a trash-talking spray-paint artist — Roger Wilko couldn't make this stuff up.

And he didn't have to.

In his upcoming short documentary film "The Mayor, Mimes, Merchants and Members," Wilko dives camera-first into the recent Waikiki street performer flap and comes up dripping with unintentional comedy.

The Honolulu-based independent filmmaker said he first picked up on the controversy — which flares like acne every few years — after reading an Advertiser story about a proposed ban on street performers last year. He shot off a round of e-mails to the City Council and Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann that day. They responded, and a film was born.

At the behest of businesses in his district, councilman Charles Djou had introduced a measure that would have banned street performers for three hours each night along a four-block stretch of Kalakaua Avenue.

Hannemann opposed the plan, but Djou believed he had enough votes on the council to overturn a veto. Hannemann countered with a plan to restrict performers to six areas within the four blocks and require them to pay a $20 licensing fee.

The last-minute proposal split the council, effectively killing Djou's measure.

"I really didn't have an opinion about any of it," Wilko said. "We had a focus, but we didn't take a side. That gives us the freedom to go through the process and form our own opinion."

That opinion was difficult to form.

Wilko researched the issue and spent a month observing the scene on Kalakaua before he began filming last month.

Each side, it seemed, had a legitimate claim. The street performers argued freedom of speech, a claim that resonated with the former comedy writer and radio producer. The merchants said the performers, in addition to being a safety hazard, were conducting business for free while the merchants had to pay for their spaces.

The political flap only muddied the water as Djou and other council members traded public barbs with Hannemann.

The film — which Wilko describes as Monty Python meets Independent Lens — features candid interviews with Hannemann and six council members as well as several street performers and shop owners. In one segment, Hannemann said his experience as a former councilman led him to believe any effort to ban the performers would lead to a protracted and expensive court battle.

Wilko explores the rancorous subject with a light touch and ironic wit, at one point coaxing a good-natured Djou to agree to arm-wrestle Hannemann as a way of resolving their ill will.

Armed with a Panasonic DVX camera and a budget estimated at less than $50, Wilko and his crew spent two nights capturing the street performers at work on the Kalakaua sidewalks.

Wilko said he was somewhat surprised to learn that many of the performers had general excise licenses and paid taxes on their earnings. Many had been performing here or on the Mainland for years, sometimes decades.

Some, like the informal blue trio formed by a longtime street musician and two passers-by, were in it for the fun. Others were seasoned professionals who relied on the nightly traffic to support themselves.

Wilko was mindful not to resort to the sort of contrived situational drama that Michael Moore and certain other documentarians employ.

Again, though, he didn't have to. "When (the performers) see news crews, they're always nicey-nice, so I just went out with the camera like a regular person," Wilko said. "Most of them were great and legitimate, but a few were really aggressive."

At one point, Wilko was confronted by an angry spray-paint artist who wanted him to turn off the camera. In a clip Wilko previewed for the Advertiser, the man stands in front of Wilko shouting, "You want to see something? I'll show you something!"

"I'm not sure what he meant by that," says Wilko, chuckling. "I'm not sure I want to know. I think he had too much spray paint."

In another clip, a gold-painted mime breaks from his act as a living statue to berate Wilko for his "unbelievable arrogance" in filming him. Unlike the spray painter, who sprayed a few choice profanities, the mime (who appears to be Caucasian) simply refers to Wilko as "white guy" and "haole."

"I was freaked out," Wilko said, his chuckle breaking into a full laugh. "Are mimes supposed to talk? And he had a gun! He was a talking mime with a gun!

"OK," Wilko said, "It was a water gun. But I was still freaked out!"

In the end, Wilko's take on the situation was a divided one.

"There should not be a law that restricts freedom of speech," he said. "You can't even think in those terms, it's a constitutional right. But there should be laws to regulate commerce."

And naked commerce was what at least some of the performers were engaging in, according to Wilko. In the film, the talking mime is shown turning his back to a group of tourists who want to take a picture with him but did not put money in his collection tin.

"To me, if a performer is not demanding money, it's not an issue," Wilko said. "But some of them do demand money, and if they do that, it's offensive to hide behind freedom of speech. In America, there is no freedom of commerce."

Wilko said his film also speaks to the tenor of the times.

"This is not a big deal," he said of the controversy. "It's not the end of the world. But it shows the divisiveness that's so prevalent now. Everybody had somebody to blame or someone to deflect blame to.

"The idea that something has to be a certain way is not American," Wilko said. "There just wasn't a lot of compromising going on."

"The Mayor, Mimes, Merchants and Members" is scheduled for release this summer. Wilko is also in post-production on a new feature comedy, "For the Love of God: Parts 1-5," starring Jack Burns, Charlie Brill and Mitzi McCall, due out next winter.

Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@honoluluadvertiser.com.