While waiting for Anora, watch Tangerine, The Florida Project and Red Rocket at the cinema again
Sean Baker’s previous films, which recently won the Palme d’Or, will be back in theaters this summer.
Anora, a young stripper from Brooklyn, transforms into a modern-day Cinderella when she meets the son of a Russian oligarch.
Without thinking, she enthusiastically marries her Prince Charming; but when the news reaches Russia, the fairy tale is quickly threatened: the young man’s parents leave for New York with the firm intention of having the marriage annulled…
Last May, Sean Baker received the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival from Greta Gerwig and her jury. While we’ll have to wait until October 30 to see Anora At the cinema, Le Pacte is planning a re-release of the three previous works by the young American filmmaker, starting this summer. Tangerine (2015), The Florida Project (2017) and Red Rocket (2022) will hit the big screen starting July 24. Here are the details.
Cannes 2024: Anora, Sean Baker’s exhilarating burlesque and sexual odyssey
Tangerine
In 2015, there was already talk of a “funny Cinderella” in this film that followed a woman from Los Angeles traveling the city in search of her rival. The viewer followed her for 24 hours.
First advises you:
A revenge movie between transgender African-American prostitutes, shot on an iPhone in a red-light district of LA. A good festival pitch? Even if Tangerine seduced the indie Mecca Sundance, make no mistake: Sean Baker’s film is worth more than its sensationalist side. The fact that it was shot on a Smartphone is not a useless gimmick: the discreet and lightweight object allows you to capture the pulse of the street without unsightly documentary grain, the image saturated with orange-yellow colors exploding in Scope format. We are in the middle of an urban western. With wigs and high heels instead of Stetson and nags. Hence a camera always at shoulder height, on the verge of imbalance but stubborn, crisscrossing the sidewalks of the City of Angels in quick sequence shots at a frenetic pace.
We quickly get caught up in the punk charm of this chatty, queer cousin of Hypertension. At the heart of a semi-amateur cast, the two main actresses steal the show. Exhilarating and funny, they electrify the dialogues packed with punchlines Tarantinosques of this Christmas tale under crystal methwhile injecting an unexpected emotion into the finale, when the high-octane drama comes down to earth “bromance” trans. From the bomb.
Tangerine: How to use the indie hit shot on a smartphone
The Florida Project
Two years later, Sean Baker relocated his cameras near Disney World in Florida, but kept the same way of depicting a poor community, yet so rich in diversity and vitality.
Here is the editorial opinion:
It seems that misery is less painful in the sun. In The Florida Projectno one openly complains about (sur)viving in a difficult world where the continually blue sky has difficulty hiding its clouds. The action takes place in a motel as colorful as Cinderella’s castle that sits in the neighboring Disney park. Except that here Minnie, Mickey and Pluto, have trouble making ends meet and live for the most part in great precariousness.
Sean Baker watches his protagonists move with the same vitality that so amazed us in his previous feature film: Tangerine. The world of young adults who are not always very responsible and that of unruly children who see their apparent freedom as a game that must be taken advantage of immediately, collide until they completely merge. The manager of the said motel (Willem Dafoe, impeccable), may well make big eyes, but everyone knows that he wants to protect everyone. We must recognize that Sean Baker has a fierce desire to fight with the adulterated idea of the American dream and to place himself right next to the sun (Tangerine was set in a seedy Los Angeles) to better capture its backlighting. Finally, it is worth noting the perfect performance of a young unknown, Bria Vinaite, spotted by the director via Instagram.
Cannes 2024: Meeting with Sean Baker, Palme d’Or for Anora
Red Rocket
Finally, two years ago, the director returned with a new story mixing sex and precariousness, for this portrait of a former porn actor returning to Texas after years of absence and reconnecting with his ex-girlfriend. A broke, and fascinating character. Once again, the portrait of America depicted by Sean Baker in this mistreated life story was edifying.
The criticism of First :
A few months before Donald Trump’s election. Mikey, a washed-up porn star, returns to his Texas hometown. He crashes at his ex-wife’s and ex-mother-in-law’s place while he gets his health back. He claims to be passing through and is looking for work, but in an America ravaged by the crisis, and with a CV as short as his dick is long, Mikey can’t find anything. He wanders, on his bike, between the deserted refineries and gas stations. He starts selling hashish to make a little money and comes across Strawberry, a 17-year-old girl, a saleswoman in a donut shop. Mikey is smitten. He seduces her and gradually sees her as his ticket back to LA…
There are several movies in Red Rocket. First of all, a beautiful character study. Mikey is an ambivalent character. Selfish and arrogant, superb and miserable, a guy capable of scamming his loved ones without an ounce of regret. Resourcefulness and lies are his personal Gods. His machine-gun chatter is his favorite weapon. Cynicism, his best cartridge. And if Sean Baker finds no excuse for him, he films his slum seduction and his pathetic flamboyance with formidable energy. We gradually become attached to this inconsequential toy boy thanks to writing on the edge, irreverent and sensitive, corrosive without being gratuitous. But it is also thanks to Simon Rex’s impressive performance that it works. Ultra white smile, velvet gaze, body of Apollo, this former porn star (re)plays part of her own story and finds here the role of her life.
Yet Red Rocket is a little more than that. In the background, on TV, the 2016 election is being played out. And behind the portrait of the loser hides a political film. A painting of White trash America, this America of the broken margins, where swindling, lying and cowardice are the keys to survival. Texas suddenly becomes the symbol of all Yankee oppressions (as the kid says “Before black gold, we lived on black ivory”). With his dreams of grandeur and easy money fueled by his cowardice and immaturity, Mikey becomes the embodiment of Trumpian America, an America ready to do anything to achieve its miserable ambitions.
Red Rocket – Sean Baker: “The death of cinema? That’s bullshit”
