While my next post will discuss the history and current climate of summer blockbusters, here I'd like to talk about a different kind of film: the summer indie. My favorite film released last summer had a budget of merely $2 million, released not by a major studio but by A24, an independent studio that's only been around for five years. That film is The Florida Project, first screened at the Cannes Film Festival in the middle of May.
First of all, The Florida Project is sooo Florida. I've spent a good amount of time there, and I've never seen a film capture its troubles and gaudy dilapidation so well. Yet, it isn't exclusively a Floridian story. In fact, these kind of stories are told all the time, though rarely with such grace. For those of you who have seen Truffaut's The 400 Blows, imagine relentless garishness instead of black-and-white—and kids who actually deserved to go to jail. And like that movie, The Florida Project does a masterful job of showing kids as they really are—from making up rules to stupid games and getting angry when their friend breaks them to kind of genius ideas like candy forks. These kids understand their situation, their poverty more than anyone thinks.
The child star is Moonee, a deviant six-year-old who runs wild all summer through the only overrun motel her mother Halley can afford. To Moonee and friends, it is a theme park. Sean Baker handles these characters with amazing empathy and compassion—sensitively portraying the plight of poverty across America set beside the insensitive who can never comprehend. (The most clear example of this is when the new motel manager refuses Halley at the door with no regard for her safety or even her dignity.) With this understanding, there aren’t gaudy scenes of melodramatic despair that panhandle for pity.
The child star is Moonee, a deviant six-year-old who runs wild all summer through the only overrun motel her mother Halley can afford. To Moonee and friends, it is a theme park. Sean Baker handles these characters with amazing empathy and compassion—sensitively portraying the plight of poverty across America set beside the insensitive who can never comprehend. (The most clear example of this is when the new motel manager refuses Halley at the door with no regard for her safety or even her dignity.) With this understanding, there aren’t gaudy scenes of melodramatic despair that panhandle for pity.
Even the token crying-in-the-bathroom scene is understated and quickly cut away from. The difficulty Moonnee and Halley face and the monotony of poverty isn’t lost on Baker, but neither is an honest assessment of them. Like the motel manager Bobby, he loves them but holds them accountable, and doesn’t shy away from showing Halley’s irresponsibility as a parent or her prostitution, even if she’s forced into it. This isn't a sermon or an admonition; this is a portrait of a few lives.
The probably abstract ending reveals the heart of The Florida Project: kids dealing with impossibly difficult circumstances just by being kids.
Dude, The Florida Project is one of my favorite movies of all time. You write about it really well. I talk about John Cassavetes in my post for today, and I've heard Baker talk about how he was really inspired by his films.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Awesome background on your page. Love Wim Wenders.