A break today from quarantine, fire and conservative hypocrisy. I watched a couple of movies this week that benefited from the double feature treatment. Both feature young kids and young women exploring life and discovering sexuality and power. There's the eternal double standard for girls and boys. And delightful moments of comedy and connection.
1. The Florida Project. Directed by Sean Baker (director of one of my all-time favorite movies, Tangerine). Watch young Mooney and her friends Scooty and Jancey, living in a rundown motel in Orlando, constantly sugared up on soft drinks and food pantry pastries, free to roam and yet tethered by poverty, dissatisfied parents, the constant thrum of Disney tourism and a frequent helicopter.
2.Then there's the much-maligned Cuties, directed by Maïmouna Doucouré. What a view into the life of a young Senegalese girl, living in a Parisian apartment with her mom, grave-faced little brother, baby sibling, and extended family. The controversy about young Amy's sexualization seems manufactured to me; I watched this movie twice and both times felt drawn into the entire story: the pull of her Wolof-speaking heritage, her family's Muslim faith, the rejection she feels with her father's second marriage and her mother's perceived failures, and the acceptance she yearns for and seeks through reggaeton dancing and girls at her school who have formed a dance group. It's worth a careful watch.
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