Anora Sean Baker (USA; 2024) Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn
viewed Tyneside Cinema 29 Dec 24; ticket: £12.25
no glass slipper
Sean Baker’s ‘Anora’ like his earlier movie ‘Tangerine (2014)’ is a drama revolving around the sex industry.
‘Tangerine’ is grounded in the life and experiences of its two transgender stars Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor who bring a street wise knowledge of hustling and prostitution to their parts, embedding the film in an existential honesty. Working with physical intimacy as ‘cum enablers’ Kitana and Mya (Sin-Dee and Alexander) obey the first rule of their profession: always stay in control of the interaction. They have also mastered the necessary psychic flip of protective distancing from their customers. This necessary psychological sheaf of course comes at the cost of the radical separation of the body sensations from emotional responses (something victims of sexual abuse also experience). As real life actors prostitutes often (but not always – as with other service providers you get what you pay for – low rent buys low rent product, high rent comes with high client expectation) have to play out hot whilst staying cold inside. The corollary is that, as the essential professional recourse to the splitting of the self becomes the default behavioural mode, close relationships are affected and emotional feelings become difficult to handle.
Sin-dee and Alexander, as pro-ladymen whores ply their trade with sardonic humour style and a nose for danger. Shot on adapted iPhones against the fractured background of Sunset Boulevard the production has spacial immediacy and the hokum script is characterised by sharp edged dialogue that although written by Baker seems to be indebted to the attitudes and life style of its two leads. ‘Tangerine’ looks like it began with a perception of a situation: the LA streets as portals of forbidden desire.
Whereas ‘Tangerine’ begins with a perception, the starting point of Baker’s ‘Anora’ is ‘in general’ the “Cinderella’ story, and more specifically a mouldy pile of second hand scripts dealing with the half baked male fantasy of the ‘reformed prostitute’. A script idea as stale as yesterday’s spent sperm. ‘Tangerine’s’ scenario is given life by staying faithful to depiction of actual experience, ‘Anora’s’ script peddles the lies and falsehoods of Hollywood fairy tales. A tired story bloated out with production values and orchestrated set piece slapstick.
Baker’s uses the cheap trick of repetitive banality to divert the audience’s attention from the feeble working out of the script’s premise. To distract from the unconvincing proposition that Anora has feelings for Vanya, the viewer is subjected to scene after scene image after image of them screwing. The repeated spectacle of their thrusting pelvises and clonic orgasms (accompanied by requisite moans and groans) is intended to batter the audience into acceptance that her professionalism as a whore has been compromised because she’s being fucked brainless by her Russian toyboy.
Baker’s scenario after the sex courtship section, breaks down into three further sequences: Anora’s detainment, the search for Vanya and the pay off of the enforced annulment. And there is also to cap it all, a final coda. These sections are all overlong and characterised by shifts in mood and mode moving between slapstick, violence and ruminative dialogue – the latter of which is mostly predictably laboured. The distraction of the spectacles of violence and physical farce allow the scenes to be temporarily extended far beyond any dramatic purpose. The combinative effect is to progressively undermine interest in any of the characters (who become increasingly cardboard) and its feeble plot finally entirely deadening the audience’s attention.
And that’s before we get to the coda which sees Ani, taken home by one of the Russians who had violently held her hostage. Instead of getting out of the car, she suddenly falls prey to the Stockholm Syndrome, mounts him and getting her hips thrusting into his cock, she fucks him. Pandering all the more to male wishful thinking, the which scene takes us more or less back to square one and the realisation that Anora might not have the glass slipper but she doesn’t have knickers either.
adrin neatrour
adrinuk@yahoo.co.uk
