Tangerine, film review: Humour and pathos shot on an iPhone 5
"Tangerine is a bit of a marvel, a low-budget film reportedly shot entirely on the iPhone 5 but one which combines extraordinary visual inventiveness, humour and pathos. Set on Christmas Eve in Los Angeles, it follows two "trans" prostitutes as they roam the city. One, Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) is furious to learn that her pimp boyfriend cheated on her while she was in prison.
The other, Alexandra (Mya Taylor), is an aspiring performer who wants to recruit an audience for her show. The third principal character is an Armenian cab driver (Karren Karagulian) who seems a decent family man but has a fatal fascination with the red light district. The film is shot in iridescent colour. It is frequently very funny but its protagonists are all lost souls.
Baker shoots Tangerine in a freewheeling, improvisatory style that rekindles memories of John Cassavetes films following equally strung-out and desperate characters."
~~~~ When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries. ~~~~ You cannot hate people for their own good.
1. "RE: Tangerine (Baker, 2015)" In response to Reply # 0
Surprised there's no more discussion on this shit, especially now that it's on Netflix.
What a fucking ride. Really insane what you can do with a non-existent budget and non-professional actors (not to mention shooting on a fucking iPhone) if you understand the medium, which it's pretty clear Baker does.
This is trashy art (or arty trash) that has a heart and soul. I'd have a much harder time defending it against claims that it's exploitative if it didn't find such a sincerely empathetic tone for how it portrays a day in the life these marginalized characters. (I think it's fair to classify meth-smoking minority transgender sex workers as pretty high on "society's most marginalized" list, but the movie never treats them with anything less than respect.)
I mean, it's lurid and raunchy as fuck, but it feels infinitely more alive and refreshing than the typically lame Oscar Bait bullshit that floods theaters this time of the years.
2. "I picked the wrong environment to try this movie out." In response to Reply # 0 Sat Jan-02-16 11:40 AM by Nodima
Girlfriend's couch, few shots and couple beers deep, right after a fourth or fifth viewing of Nightcrawler, around 1:00AM in the morning.
This fucking movie is BRASH, LOUD, OBNOXIOUS and BRIGHT AS FUCK. We tapped out about halfway through, it was just way too overwhelming and hard to deal with.
I saw a lot of potential in it, I just need an environment where I can focus a little more and be far, far less overwhelmed by how MASSIVE and CLANGING and ABRASIVE it is.
Frank Longo Member since Nov 18th 2003 86672 posts
Sat Jan-02-16 12:45 PM
4. "I'll borrow two words in this post: "abrasive" and "refreshing."" In response to Reply # 0
Like someone else said, maybe hungover on New Years Day wasn't the time to watch a movie about characters who are constantly shouting and swearing while very loud music plays and very bright quick-cut images flash.
I really admired it, though. Definitely captured a world we don't often see and an authenticity not often achieved.
Someone brought up the issue of exploitation in this post elsewhere, and while I definitely suspected the film of being an exploitative view of these women through the eyes of a straight white man for the first 15-20 minutes or so, it becomes a bit less broad and far more empathetic as it goes, so those thoughts more or less vanished-- I suppose they just wanted to grab the audience's attention in a big and loud way, and I reckon that tactic works.
It's definitely an experience worth having, and folks should check it out, as, again, you're incredibly unlikely to see many movies about minority transgender prostitutes that actually deal with them as living breathing human beings.
And holy shit did the cinematography blow my mind-- I'm going to read as many articles as I can to figure out how they did that with an iPhone.
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