'Tangerine' More Than Just A Movie Made On iPhones
Much of the buzz around Tangerine stems from the fact it was shot entirely on iPhone 5s, equipped with special lenses. While it is indeed remarkable that a pocket-sized device could have produced such a lush, sharp-looking movie, the visual style isn't likely to be the main takeaway. Instead, you'll probably be much more interested in how Tangerine manages to be an unforgettable cocktail of a Christmas movie, at once funny and troubling, touching and zany.
Set in sunbaked Los Angeles on Christmas Eve, the story is a day-in-the-life of two transgender prostitutes. Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) has just gotten out of a month-long stint in jail and her day starts with a celebration: sharing a donut with her best friend Alexandra (Mya Taylor). At this holiday feast, Sin-Dee learns her boyfriend/pimp was cheating on her with another girl – "with a vagina" -- while she was locked up. This immediately sends Sin-Dee into a rage, and she goes on the warpath in search of her romantic rival.
Sin-Dee rampages down Santa Monica Boulevard, getting up in drug dealers' faces, breaking into a motel brothel and effectively kidnapping the rival in question. With a pulsing if sometimes grating soundtrack, Tangerine rushes by, introducing character after character, showing the personalities of a side of LA that's anything but glamorous, and yet these characters aren't portrayed as victims or losers or even simple eccentrics. Instead, director Sean Baker shows these people as standing on their own two feet, chasing their various dreams. You have to keep up with them.
While Sin-Dee wants to assert herself in her relationship, Alexandra tries to get everyone she knows to show up at her solo singing performance later that night. One man she hands a flyer to is a client, an Armenian cab driver named Razmik (Karren Karagulian), who's the focus of half the movie. He's got a wife and a little girl, as well as a thing for Sin-Dee and other trans women. His Christmas Eve goes from a dull work-and-family affair to something out of Harmony Korine's imagination after he lies to his relatives and goes out in search of Sin-Dee. However, he doesn't realize that his old-school mother-in-law is following him. What ensues after she finds her son-in-law with Sin-Dee and company at a donut shop is one of the craziest yuletide moments in cinema.
Scenes like that make Tangerine undoubtedly entertaining as well as funny. But their outrageousness doesn't discount the film's moments of surprising tenderness. It is, after all, a film about friendship. Despite how tough Sin-Dee and Alexandra can appear, they are suffering -- smoking crack, turning tricks, living on the brink of poverty and on the receiving end of random acts of cruelty. Seeing how their relationship fortifies them to face a world in which everything is threatening and hostile, is beautiful on a level far deeper than the citrus-colored glam of Los Angeles. That such an overall vibrant work could be captured on a cell phone is impressive, but, in the end, trivial.
Tangerine is playing at the Uptown Theatre.
