The transgender streetwalking main characters of Sean Baker’s Tangerine (2016) feel like the complete polar opposite of Metropolitan’s over-privileged weiners and this film is a senses-battering wild ride of a film. Shot entirely on IPhones on the streets of Los Angeles on a tiny budget, Baker’s debut is hard work but also a minor miracle of guerrilla film-making.
However, like Metropolitan, this is a glimpse into a completely different world, a universe inhabited by fierce, potty-mouthed transgender hookers and the men who use them…at Christmas. The whole film essentially follows the furious rampage of Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, no other film credits), fresh out of a month in jail, who tears through L.A.’s sun-kissed mean streets during the holidays after hearing her boyfriend/pimp Chester (James Ransone) has cheated on her. Dragging best friend Alexandra (Mya Taylor) along for the ride, Sin-Dee sets out to teach Chester and his new lover a lesson and woe betide anyone crazy enough to get in her way. This is a totally non-judgemental look at the lives of these people on Christmas Eve in one of the most un-Christmassy places on earth.
Initially, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to handle Sin-dee’s irritating, high-pitched voice or her constant effing and blinding about “drama” and “bitches” and stuff, but these characters start to grow on you. Baker’s film aims for complete gritty realism and pulls no punches in its matter-of-factness. These people are lost souls, but also tough, confident women who don’t make many complaints about the existence they’ve chosen.
The film gets some major cred for actually casting genuine trans performers, rather than just sticking Jared Leto in a dress or something like that. The characters act kind of recklessly and dumb, but feel honest and true. There’s loads of really unglamorous scenes of Alex and Sin-Dee pounding the pavement, getting into arguments and encounters with their fellow denizens of their ‘Skid Row’-type home. We also spend time with Armenian cabbie Razmik (Karren Karagulian), a hard-working immigrant family man who obviously has particular tastes that his home life can’t possibly satisfy. There are hints that he might actually be in love with both of the girls, a tricky situation that can clearly only end in disaster.
This is not your typical holiday movie, but feels like a Christmas film in that it’s about family – the pimps, johns and other colourful street girls are the only family these girls have. Their journey is wild, harrowing but also kind of heartwarming. It becomes clear that, despite their near constant bickering and screeching, these women all look out for each other and have certain codes and rules that they all try to observe. Pimp Chester is a total bottom-feeding loser, but it’s clear that he is truly in love with Sin-Dee and dearly wants to marry her, despite his cheating ways. It's crazy and dysfunctional, but what family isn’t?
Alex takes a pit stop from their mission to sing a melancholy, affecting rendition of ‘Toyland’ from festive favourite Babes in Toyland to a largely deserted bar. She’s spent most of the film handing out flyers for the show to everyone they meet, hoping for a packed house, so the performance is especially poignant, soulful and tragic. For a short moment she’s a ‘star’ on the stage, a glimpse of a life that might have been and it’s a welcome respite from Sin-Dee’s exhausting rampage.
It's a fascinating film, an assault on the senses that reminds me of the similarly kinetic Crank movies. However, unlike those films, Baker’s effort crackles with energy while being punctuated with short moments of real profound beauty. When Sin-Dee finally catches up with and accosts Dinah (Mickey O’Hagan), who’s been sleeping with Chester, it first seems like she’s going to kill her, but as the movie goes on, they warm to each other, perhaps acknowledging that they’re both in the same boat here and that it doesn’t pay to carry grudges in their – or any – world. This is a lesson we can all learn from. It doesn’t need to be Christmas for it to be a good time to let bygones be bygones.
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