The Florida Project

THE FLORIDA PROJECT      B                 

USA  (111 mi)  2017  ‘Scope  d:  Sean Baker

A glimpse of the hidden homeless tucked seamlessly inside the nooks and crannies of a near invisible American underclass, premiering at Director’s Fortnight at Cannes, by the maker of Starlet (2012) and the in-your-face TANGERINE (2015), a cinéma vérité experience shot entirely with an iPhone, this is like the kiddie version of Andrea Arnold’s American Honey(2016), a raw and blistering look at the seamy underside of America, set initially to the outlandishly upbeat music of Kool & The Gang - Celebration - YouTube (4:18), though it feels much closer to a Harmony Korine film, yes, the man who made Spring Breakers (2012), who typically adores those living on the fringe of society, where reality is not the essential truth about the film, but a carefully constructed candy-colored artificiality.  The grimness of the film is a deluded sense of empowerment.  Remove the illusion and what you’re left with is scathingly empty.  Set just off the highway in a cheap, strip-mall motel in Orlando, Florida, a transient city where people come and go, home of the renowned Disney World, which promises to be “the happiest place on earth,” this is an eye-opening, tour-de-force exposé that centers around 6-year old child actress Brooklyn Kimberly Prince as Moonee, who is in nearly every shot of the film, basically running free, ruler of her own little world, free from adult supervision, and just simply has the run of the place.  Co-written, directed, edited, and produced by Baker, in a very atypical experience, spending so much time in the company of kids onscreen, he’s made a film that has white trash written all over it, yet withholds judgment, as it’s not so presumptuous, offering a more free-form expression of kids on the loose, brash trash talkers, wildly uninhibited, full of mischief and back-talk to adults, where they seem giddily happy most of the time, with nothing and no one stopping them from doing whatever they want.  This liberated spirit is the heart of the film, as the place is surrounded by rampant commercialism, the kinds of places seen in every tourist trap, grotesque examples of crass capitalism in play.  Conformity and proper decorum follow these family-oriented businesses, as they cater to kids, luring families and their pocket books by being child-friendly in a landscape of Disney paradise, but it’s all about the dollar signs, as anyone stepping out of line will be rudely escorted out of these places.  But the Magic Castle Motel, where Moonee lives, or Futureland Inn around the corner, are dead-end motels further off the track, away from the strip, seemingly lost in a netherworld, a grungy and decaying depiction of a dilapidated world, where people only find them by making a wrong turn, hilariously exemplified by a Brazilian couple on their honeymoon, who take one look at the dump before heading off in another direction.  Completely off-limits from established middle-class joints, Magic Castle is painted a bright lavender color that makes it look Wes Anderson surreal from The Grand Budapest Hotel(2014), shot on 35 mm, though of course projected on digital in theaters, with an incandescent color scheme by Alexis Zabé, the cinematographer for Carlos Reygadas and 2012 Top Ten Films of the Year: #2 Post Tenebras Lux, yet the film has a cinéma vérité documentary style, offsetting the blatant artificiality with a searing realism.

While these are the kinds of kids you might see running up and down the aisles of Walmart or Target, dodging shopping carts, grabbing food or candy off the shelves, inadvertently knocking things over, and then high-tailing it out of there before the manager can catch up to them, all brazenly done out in the open, and probably repeated in store after store, where despite the fact these are misfit kids, they already have a dubious reputation.  Because of their age, they probably avoid criminal prosecution, but are more likely viewed as smart-alecky kids that get away with murder because their parents are too lax to scold them or hold them accountable for their behavior.  We’ve all seen kids like this, but mostly they remain off the radar, as rarely do films focus their full attention on their lives as they do here.  Moonee’s partner in crime is Scooty (Christopher Rivera), another kid from the motel (wildly adorable, both of whom appeared in formal wear on the red carpet premiere at Cannes), as we follow their misadventures wandering into another apartment complex and creating havoc, spitting on cars from an overhead balcony railing, before running away.  Quickly identified as the culprits, we see them returned to the scene of the crime, where they are ordered to wipe up the mess, but rather than view it as punishment, they turn it into a playful game where one of the kids from the offended party actually wants to join in, Jancey (Valeria Cotto), becoming their new best friend.  And off they go on another adventure, visiting the local ice-cream parlor, hitting on adults for money to buy a cone that all three can share, delightfully lapping it up before it melts.  When we meet Moonee’s mother, Halley (Bria Vinaite), we’re not surprised, as she’s a foul-mouthed, heavily tattooed con artist who also happens to be a pathological liar.  What we witness from her is atrocious and reprehensible adult behavior, as she weasels her way out of everything, rarely keeping a watchful eye on her daughter, always blaming others, thinking only of herself, believing she has a free ride.  She pays rent week by week by scraping up whatever she can, buying discount items and selling them to tourists at more upscale locales, using her daughter as part of the scam.  While she’s a completely unsympathetic character, even resorting to prostitution, she adores her daughter and loves playing with her, always making her the center of attention.

Holding down the fort as manager of this hell-hole is none other than Willem Dafoe as Bobby, the guy that has to deal with all these bottom-dwelling personalities, as the place is filled with people of questionable character, while he’s charged with maintaining the property, fixing all disputes, and taking care of things that break down.  Dafoe plays it straight, making no judgments, abiding by the house rules, refusing to be taken advantage of by overly frugal guests or people with questionable character, such as an aging woman who prefers sitting at the pool topless, causing commotion with the kids, or more disturbingly runs off an old man who takes a perverse interest lurking around the kids, who for the most part comes across as a decent, stand-up guy who treats people fairly, understanding the fragility in their lives, often standing up for them, while also overlooking things and minding his own business.  While there is plenty of outrageous humor in this film, it’s a surprisingly upbeat film that grows more devastatingly grim toward the end, as this film shows what it feels like to be down-and-out in America, with Halley growing more desperate, resorting to riskier criminal activity, where her best friend cuts off relations, then bans Scooty from hanging out with Moonee, feeling like a noose is pulling ever tighter around Halley’s neck, with her world collapsing like a house of cards.  Moonee has no idea what’s going on, showing surprising resiliency, yet there are stark moments where boundaries are crossed, such as when a strange man walks in on her while she’s naked in the bathtub, violating her space, but seen from Moonee’s vantage point, those moments vanish in the blink of an eye, as each day stretches longer and longer, seemingly filled with limitless time, as there’s no real narrative here, where instead each successive day blends blurry-eyed into the next one.  There are moments that stand out, such as when charity food trucks pull up to hand out free food, quickly relocated out back, away from roving eyes, or when Halley and Moonee treat themselves to an all-you-can eat banquet, literally stuffing themselves, with the camera staring straight at Moonee’s face as she devours every bite, offering a view of instant fulfillment, but it’s a mood that can’t last, as everything in their lives is temporary, where there is never any forethought or plan, as this is a fly-by-night operation.  When things further deteriorate with Halley, it’s inevitable that Moonee’s world will also be affected, and though alluded to, that’s not the focus of this film, which dreamily prefers a more impressionable view of children as wild animals running free, scampering through the artificially constructed landscape, where her fate is all too reminiscent of rounding up the wild horses at the end of John Huston’s The Misfits (1961), where the thought of taming and caging them is unthinkable, and ultimately heartbreaking. 

Manglehorn

MANGLEHORN            B               

USA  (97 mi)  2014  ‘Scope  d:  David Gordon Green

David Gordon Green continues to confound, even at this stage of his career, where he’s no longer the young indie filmmaker that made visually spectacular films about relationships and growing up, like George Washington (2000), or his big budget stoner comedies, like The Sitter (2011), while the new phase he’s entered into includes working with name actors, such as Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch in Prince Avalanche (2013) and Nicolas Cage in Joe (2013).  It’s highly unusual, to say the least, to finally see an actor of Al Pacino’s stature to be working with the heralded indie director, and Holly Hunter as well, where the viewer simply hasn’t a clue what to expect.  What is indisputable, however, is that Green is one of the best directors of his generation, where he was one of the first, with many following afterwards, to come from the North Carolina School of the Arts Film School, which has also produced Green’s cinematographer Tim Orr, actors Danny McBride and Paul Schneider, but also new indie filmmakers Jeff Nichols and Aaron Katz.  Refusing to be pigeonholed, this film feels like a spectacular failure, as it strives to be unlikeable and commercially off the edge, where he’s not going out of his way to build a new audience.  But what it has is an uncompromising spirit, where Pacino isn’t simply some lovable old man with a cat, like the popular Art Carney in Paul Mazursky’s life-affirming HARRY AND TONTO (1974), where Carney won the Academy Award for Best Actor in the same year Al Pacino was nominated for THE GODFATHER II (1974).  Instead this film has the balls to deviate from standard practice and allow Pacino to play a despicable and thoroughly deplorable human being.  While it’s likely this was the criteria that drew him to the role in the first place, as it’s the exact opposite of what leading men are used to playing.  At age 75, the general feeling is that Pacino can do whatever the hell he wants to do at this stage in his career, as he’s free to choose the material that interests him the most.  Still, it may come as something of a surprise just how detestable and loathsome he really is in this role, where the audience has to put up with him in nearly every frame of the film.  To put it bluntly, this is not an easy experience.  Yet that’s the unwelcoming quality both Green and Pacino bring to this film.  Accordingly, it speaks volumes about the recalcitrance of old age. 

First and foremost is the voice, where Pacino’s gravelly, world-weary voice narrates the entire film, much of it dictated letters written to a long lost love named Clara, who it appears was the love of his life―not the woman he married, we learn much later, but the one that got away, who in his mind has been built up to be so much more than she ever was in real life.  In short, she has become an obsession that he can’t control, as he measures everything else that happens in the world next to his image of her, where nothing even comes close.  Accordingly, his life is a series of neverending disappointments, with occasional moments when things aren’t so bad, but what follows is a flood of disillusionment with the way of the world.  A.J. Manglehorn (Pacino) is a lone locksmith by trade, burrowed into that hole of an office where he works and barely ever speaks to anyone, preferring a life of solitude where he continually chatters away to his cat, or the friendly bank clerk Dawn (Holly Hunter), who he waits to be serviced by, where for two or three minutes they’re like long-lost friends as he deposits his weekly earnings, doing it all over again the next week at the exact same place and time.  To say he is a creature of habit is an understatement, as at his age, he comes to rely upon the safety and normalcy of routine.  You might even say it’s what keeps him alive, as that’s all he has to look forward to.  Without it he’d be lost.  What immediately stands out is what a cranky old bastard he is, bitter and difficult most of the time, where he seems to thrive on giving people a hard time.  But really, he’s simply not used to other people’s company as he spends so much time alone where he experiences a tortuous relationship with the past.  Reliving the failures of one’s life and always reaching the same dead end is not very inspiring, as it leaves him emotionally deflated and disgusted with himself, where he’s in no mood to please others, as he’s so self-absorbed in his own pathetic misery.

His composed letters to Clara are the only moments of optimism and joy, where thinking of her gets his mind right, as the world looks different somehow, filled with color instead of looking dreary and gray, and not so cluttered with meaningless material.  As we hear the umpteenth letter that he composes to her, we can’t even imagine the profound depth of misery and loneliness that accompanies every carefully chosen word.  He gets up the nerve to actually ask Dawn out on a date, which touches a piece of his memory that he hasn’t used in a while, where it’s a bit out of character, but their conversations are extended by several innocent meetings at a local community center serving all-you-can-eat pancakes.  While it’s clear she’s looking forward to it, perhaps she comes on a bit too strong, even though they’re meeting in a mostly empty, nondescript cafeteria.  Not at all on the same page, Manglehorn instead launches into a lengthy soliloquy on Clara, like releasing the fogbanks of his own personal obsessions, showing no regard for his guest, which Dawn finds rude and ill-mannered, eventually leaving in stunned anger.  Manglehorn’s response is to take the uneaten food off her plate and add it to his own meal.  While he’s normally cranky and disgruntled, he usually reserves his surly nature for when he’s alone.  Throughout the film we see evidence of weird and inhospitable moments with his own wealthy but estranged son (Chris Messina), who he barely knows, or a somewhat demented turn from Harmony Korine as Gary, who runs a seedy massage parlor but remembers Manglehorn fondly as the coach of his Little League baseball team, apparently one of the few good guys in his overly troubled childhood.  No moment is stranger than a surrealistic multi-car accident that borders on a tribute to Godard’s WEEKEND (1967), where bodies are lying inertly on the ground or hanging out of doors, as doctors have not yet arrived on the scene, but instead of blood there are crushed watermelons strewn around everywhere, where the color red saturates the bizarre landscape.  The scene is even more impactful by the way it is shot, as Green uses slow-motion to allow observing detail as Manglehorn walks past the carnage, with the muffled sound altered as well, all the while holding onto his prized cat, perhaps his only real friend in the world.  That horrible collision may as well be a metaphor for his life, a series of neverending accidents all strung out together.  But the film is not entirely downbeat, as there is room for one of the more unforgettable scenes of the year, as even Al Pacino is upstaged by a heavyset black man (Tim Curry) entering the bank holding a bouquet of yellow flowers, breaking out into song, singing at the top of his voice, where out of the blue one of the black female managers (Monica Lewis) comes out from the back and joins him in singing the gospel hymn “Love Lifted Me,” Love Lifted Me - Hezeklah Walker & The Love ... - YouTube (5:11), where their offbeat duet may be one of the better staged love scenes of the year, the kind of moment where everyone else just stops to appreciate the novelty of the unraveling event.  It’s a strange and crazy moment in an otherwise dismal journey into the lonely abyss of old age, where Manglehorn is a man that seriously spends entirely too much time with himself, but it’s a brave glimpse into being alone, that dark empty corridor where we are all heading some day.