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ACTORS OF TANGERINE BEAR MOVIE
ACTORS OF TANGERINE BEAR DRIVER

ACTORS OF TANGERINE BEAR DRIVER

One of the things that frustrated me was the way Razmik (an Armenian taxi driver who is a frequent customer of Alexandra and Sin-dee, played by Karren Karagulian) is juxtaposed to that terrible john. The story was only made real by the beautiful performance of the actors. The names of white men are on the script and white men directed the movie. And while the two stars did have a lot of input into the making of the script, white men are still the ones who get the credit. It was voyeuristic in the worst possible way. But the way it’s set up, how it’s shot, the progression of the plot - it’s clear that it is offering up the story to a mostly white, bougie audience. And don’t get me wrong, the story is real. I loved that they didn’t apologize for their lives or their existence.ĭespite this, the audience still laughed at really inappropriate parts, showcasing the way that the film itself fails the story it’s trying to portray. They were not respectable, they were surviving in the best way they knew how and they were supporting each other even though it was difficult.

Mya Taylor (who plays Alexandra, one of the two trans leads) and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez (who plays Sin-dee, the other) were fucking brilliant.

ACTORS OF TANGERINE BEAR MOVIE

That’s what I got from the movie Tangerine. Why is it that trans women of color have to experience so much violence to remember that they have each other’s back? In this essay, Trans Latina writer Morgan Collado talks about her own experiences and issues with the film in greater detail. When I saw it I was extremely pleased overall, but had a few issues with the film. Note from Trans Editor Mey Rude: A few weeks ago I saw the movie Tangerine and wrote about my thoughts on the movie and its stars, Mya Taylor and Kiki Kitana Rodriguez.

The Autostraddle Encyclopedia of Lesbian Cinema.

LGBTQ Television Guide: What To Watch Now.

Razmik’s story intersects calamitously, hilariously with Sin-Dee and Alexandra’s, Baker connecting the various dots of this dirty, dreamlike city in a fluid, easygoing way. Though populated by a bevy of colorful characters, including an Armenian cab driver named Razmik ( Karren Karagulian), who, despite his wife and baby at home, enjoys the company of these ladies of the night (and day, really), Tangerine’s focus remains humble, human-size, and thus the film moves much more nimbly than Dope. But whereas Dope keeps adding on and adding on until much of its animating spirit has been smothered, Tangerine stays loose and lean. Both are kinetic rambles through corners of Los Angeles we don’t often see on film. Tangerine was a sleeper hit at Sundance, and it shares some similar DNA with a slightly more high-profile Park City breakout, Rick Famuyiwa’s Dope.

Somehow Tangerine’s frequent transitions like that, from profane to sublime, aren’t jarring, Baker creating such credible texture that each moment, funny or sad or even a little scary, feels a fitting part of the same thoroughly realized world. Taylor gets to shine in a lovely, gentle musical interlude, which follows a scene of two other women smoking meth (maybe crack?) in the bathroom at West Hollywood establishment Hamburger Mary’s. Rodriguez is a particular delight her Sin-Dee drives much of the action-the film follows her as she tracks down the boyfriend who stepped out on her while she was in prison, and the girl he stepped out with-and Rodriguez is a beguiling bundle of energy throughout, not so much holding the camera as pulling it along with her. center with very little acting experience, Rodriguez and Taylor are both terrific finds, vibrant and witty and, in the film’s softly aching closing scenes, wonderfully natural in moments of quiet reflection. Told with simplicity but deep empathy, Baker’s film sports a refreshingly sober, grown-up worldview that refuses to judge, sensationalize, or do anything other than show lives as they may be, and perhaps are.įor his two leads, Baker cast “non-professional” actresses Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor. Yes, it does concern the occasionally gritty, often titillating lives of trans women hustling on the streets of scuzzy Los Angeles, and yes, it was shot on iPhones (though you wouldn’t know it to look at it), but instead of a leering stunt, Tangerine is an intimate, funny, and surprisingly poignant portrait in miniature of a few fascinating American lives. Joyfully, Sean Baker’s new film, Tangerine, is anything but. A movie about transgender sex workers shot entirely on iPhone 5s may sound like something niche, or alienating, a film experiment that, to legitimize its gimmick, maybe takes a prurient, exploitative look at a marginalized group of people.