Happy (?!) Monday, friends! Taking a break from work (and, yes, I'll be going back to it after this) to write to you all. Thanks for giving me an excuse each day to think about movies, to engage with the world and to remember that we're all a part of this great human family struggling through this together.
Anyways, hope no one was waiting on me to decide on their evening viewing!
Talk about a Monday mood, amirite??
I'd urge everyone to pay attention to the conversation going on around COVID-19 and jails/incarceration. A man died in Rikers Island over the weekend who was there on a technicality. I know this is a sensitive subject and robust debate can be had, but there are a number of people currently caught up in the prison system who have not been convicted of a crime ... yet face a potential death sentence as the system atrophies. Read up and take action if you feel so inclined.
Remember the Art House America fundraiser to support independent cinemas that I told you about a few weeks ago? It's now at over $365,000 towards a $500,000 goal! Chip in to make sure the kinds of movies I'm recommending here have a future with audiences.
Now, what you came for...
(Past suggestions archived on Letterboxd)
DAY 25: The Florida Project (available on Netflix)
A friend texted me a few days ago mid-way through The Florida Project, and his main takeaway was that it was "sad." With all due respect to said friend, who I've conveniently turned into an IRL straw man, I disagree. I don't think the film shies away from sad territory, but the overwhelming sensation I get is joy and wonder. (And as of today, that's available to you on Netflix!)
I wouldn't hesitate to say that director Sean Baker has made the best contemporary film about poor people with The Florida Project. Note the word choice: it's not a movie about poverty. The economic conditions of the characters may constrain their choices, but it does not define them. Baker puts a human face on people who far too often get reduced to data points.
Moonee (absolute firecracker Brooklynn Prince) is not made to be this object of our fear or pity; she has agency, and she gets to make the world around her into her own magic kingdom. It just so happens that said territory is quite literally in the shadow of Disney's Magic Kingdom, an area still reeling from the effects of the '08 financial crisis.
But don't expect the film to linger too much on the tragic irony of how much misery lies just outside the gates of the happiest place on earth. The Florida Project is about the boundless imagination that can never be taken away from any child no matter their background or upbringing. When I interviewed Sean Baker prior to the film's release in 2017, he talked about the film's shared DNA with the original The Little Rascals series. "The Little Rascals was set against the background of the Great Depression, the characters were living in poverty," he explained. "It’s just that it wasn’t focused on it. It was focused on what makes childhood universal. We’re all laughing at kids because we see ourselves in them, we remember our childhood."
I think that's the real miracle of The Florida Project - the ability to place us at the same level as characters who might seem worlds apart. (And given what's bearing down on our economy, this is perhaps now more pertinent than ever in the life of the film.) Unlike what I and others often deride as "poverty porn," this movie does not exist to make you feel above the characters somehow and that they - or their real life analogues - somehow need our charity and sympathy. We see what unites us to Moonee and her young single mother Halley (Bria Vinaite), who often resorts to some unsavory methods to pay their rent at the motel.
If this still sounds fairly abstract, Baker is way ahead of you. There's a character in the film who serves as an excellent entry point for the viewer: Willem Dafoe's motel manager Bobby. He's caught between the competing interests of his bosses who insist he run a profitable, tranquil establishment and the compassion he feels for the struggling residents. This puts him in many an uncomfortable bind with no clean-cut resolution.
Watching Dafoe struggle and grapple with his responsibilities recalls the role of bearing witness to the events of The Florida Project outside the narrative. What do we owe to the less fortunate? How can we use our resources to help them in their darkest hours? What can we do with our small modicum of privilege and standing to convince a system to treat people with dignity and mercy? I believe we're better as people for wrestling with these tough questions and then asking them how they can inform our own actions.
Be good to yourselves and to each other,
Marshall
P.S. - My whole interview with Sean Baker is here. With the exception of one paragraph clearly marked with "spoiler," it should be good to read even if you haven't seen the movie! And if you have seen it, either now or in the past, it's still a good read to learn more about the making of the film. I promise there's one good anecdote about a memorable scene.