Tangerine (Sean Baker, 2015): USA

Review by Zachary T. Parker. Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, 2016.

At the beginning of Tangerine, what we know is that Sin-Dee Rella (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) is mad as hell. She drags a girl named Dinah (Mickey O’Hagan) through the streets around Los Angeles, uncaring about the girl’s scratched and bleeding feet, hellbent on finding Chester (James Ransone), Sin-Dee’s boyfriend who cheated on her with Dinah. Set to a chaotic Trap-mix, her furious romp across LA slaps you in the face and grabs your attention which, for the rest of the film, will be glued on to the screen as Sean Baker’s creative stew of talent and technical ingenuity dazzles you for ninety minutes.

On a microbudget (roughly $100,000), Baker was forced to use the iphone as his camera. Often discussed in terms of purely quality (and it does look quite fantastic), an element of this use is lost on most: The level of casualness the iphone creates. In his talk with us, Baker spoke about how the use of an iphone makes individuals feel far more comfortable as opposed to a large film camera, this was especially important as Baker was using amateur and first time actors throughout the production. The acting that appears so raw and real is allowed to be so through the use of this device, a rather happy accident for the director.

Drawing upon influences such as Robert Altman, even simply the structure of Tangerine is different and rare. The climax of the film has every character mic’d, much like Altman’s M*A*S*H*, as they throw insults and and comments back and forth at each other, swelling and rising as new characters enter the donut shop.

It would be a shame to not mention the performances of both Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor (as Alexandra), both first time actors in a feature film and inspirational to the core of the film itself. Baker talked about how their stories helped provide scenes and dialogue, their true personalities already larger than life. The duo flawlessly have a give-and-take throughout their performances, something that is just as genuine off screen as it is on screen.

One would hope that this film, and indeed these two actors, provide a serious wake up call to Hollywood both in terms of the stories that they should be telling, as well as the extraordinary characters that they are leaving out of their narratives. In both what it is and how it was made, Tangerine hands us something remarkable that is, in the very least of terms, inspiring.