![]() Thereupon the narrative takes off on three tracks: The furious Sin-Dee goes off in search of the “fish” and, having found her, drags her literally kicking and screaming, on foot and on public transport, in pursuit of the elusive Chester Alexandra, in between attempting to derail the confrontation she has instigated, is trying to round up an audience for her performance in a neighborhood bar. Sin-Dee, just released from thirty days in jail with two dollars in her pocket, meets Alexandra, who, for some reason known only to her, informs the friend who is prone to making drama that Chester, their pimp (James Ransone), to whom Sin-Dee believes herself engaged, has been shacking up with a “blonde fish,” i.e., a cisgender white working girl. Tangerine takes place on a single, sunny, hot December 24, Christmas Eve in Hollywood. And what could be more compelling than imagining that the genitalia you are born with does not determine your identity-and then making that transgressive imagining a reality. Like the great transgender Warhol superstars Jackie Curtis and Candy Darling, Rodriguez and Taylor compel our attention through the power and courage of their fantasy. He also had a vision for how to create a world like no other with this particular camera, specifically the world as seen through the eyes of the film’s two central characters, Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) and Alexandra (Mya Taylor), BFF transgender working girls whose home turf is about twelve blocks of West Hollywood along Santa Monica Boulevard. Baker not only souped up his iPhone he had adventurous, skilled colleagues, in particular Radium Cheung, with whom he’s worked before and who shares cinematography and production tasks. I’m not looking forward to thousands of movies by aspiring directors who inevitably will try. And for all of its noise, 'Tangerine' ends on a moment of silent compassion-the world can be a cruel place, but we have the power to remake it in our own image.So don’t think you can use your iPhone as it comes out of the box to make anything comparable to the wide-screen, hyperreal, kinetic Tangerine. with the unbridled freedom of bebop jazz. The result is a saturated picture that courses with the raw energy of found footage while still feeling artfully composed, a movie that punches with the skittering violence of dubstep but careens through L.A. That intimacy was enabled by Baker’s decision to eschew conventional equipment in favor of shooting on unobtrusive iPhones outfitted with anamorphic lenses. ![]() Taylor, who delivers the film’s most stoic and sensitively nuanced turn, is rather new to the acting game, but you never feel a camera on her. She’s on a first-name basis with every cop in the neighborhood (though they call her Alexander), and aside from Sin‑Dee, the married Armenian taxi driver she blows in a car wash is the closest thing she has to a friend. A proud fixture of Los Angeles’ seediest streets, Alexandra has just started taking the hormones required for her body to catch up with her sense of self, and the vagrant path she cuts across the city palpably conveys the vulnerability of being trans in a world where people cling to their genders for shelter. Most of the story is seen through her eyes as she follows the wake of her colead’s carnage. If Sin-Dee is the boiling blood of Baker’s movie, Alexandra is its beating heart. And so begins a roaring rampage of revenge. (Sin‑Dee’s furious first steps out of the restaurant are appropriately punctuated with blasts of gunfire on the soundtrack.) Adding insult to injury, the girl he’s been sleeping with has a vagina. Enjoying a celebratory snack at Donut Time with her best friend and colleague Alexandra (Mya Taylor), Sin-Dee learns that her pimp boyfriend, Chester (James Ransone), has been sleeping around. Set over the course of a sunbaked Christmas Eve in Southern California, the premise explodes out of the gate: Sin-Dee Rella (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) is a rambunctious trans prostitute who’s just been unleashed from a 28-day stint in prison. A reinvigorating reminder of what indie filmmaking can-and should-do, this bracingly brilliant new movie from writer-director Sean Baker tells an LA story so florid and electric that it feels like a Pedro Almodóvar remake of 'Crank'.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |