🎬 #206 The Director With His Own Typeface.
Sean Baker won the Best Director Oscar for his latest film, Anora, but that achievement was built on a long career, four films that I still haven’t seen before his ‘breakthrough’ film Tangerine took Sundance by surprise. This week’s film is his follow-up to that much-admired, much-inspiring film - iPhone filmmaking exploded after he proved things don’t need to be shot traditionally to hit the mark. This is a tale of childhood near the Magic Kingdom that is magical despite the darkness iris-ing in at the periphery.
Please enjoy
Bry
FILM: THE FLORIDA PROJECT
2017 Dir Sean Baker
1 hr 51 mins
Willem Dafoe plays Bobby, the manager of a motel near the Disney World resort in Florida — in such a lovely and comforting performance, it makes you want to be a better person. He takes on much more than the role of manager; he’s a guardian, someone trying his best to look out for everyone. Doing the best he can to upkeep a scenario that’s crumbling beneath him, beyond his control. Much like the premises he’s caretaker of, trying to patch up the paintwork, clear stuff out of the pool. Except it’s not as easy when it’s people’s lives, especially Halley’s. A single mother trying to keep a roof over her and her daughter Moonee’s head - struggling week to week to pay the rent. Resorting to sometimes extreme lengths to do so. It’s Baker’s willingness not to judge as a filmmaker that takes us along on the journey without our own judgments overshadowing proceedings.
All the while, when we’re in kids’ world everything is great. They’re free to roam around the area, no curfew, no one watching over them, except Bobby. Sheltered from the darkness creeping in from the edges. On the fringes, just out of the influences of Disney’s huge resort they might as well be on Mars, so far from the once in a lifetime magical experience designed for kids and yet they are constantly having fun, and getting into trouble. They’re creating their own theme park from the mundanity of the world around them. It’s only when Baker lets the adult world seep in that we understand just how dire the situation is. This is usually in the form of Bobby trying to keep an eye on the kids, despite also trying to run a business. The subtlety of the adultness is exactly as it might be perceived or not perceived as a kid. Something disguised as fun, but is actually something entirely different, once you see it from an adult’s perspective.
It’s really delicately done - and Baker’s signature literally in the form of the same typeface he’s used for his last 5 films warmth for fringe tales and characters shines through via his ‘seemingly’ effortless style. This is a magical film about childhood. A childhood shielded from the sometimes darkness of the adult world, not by a theme park designed to keep the real world out, but by imagination and one wonderful adult in particular.