The Other Side / Tangerine

Part of the UCLA Film & Television Archive’s American Neorealism, Part Two: 1984-2020 screening series. Register at cinema.ucla.edu to attend this in-theater screening.

In person: filmmaker Roberto Minervini

Roberto Minervini continues his exploration of American life with this terrifying glimpse into the frustrated dreams that in so many ways, fueled the storming of the capital on January 6, 2021. Filmed in Louisiana, the film alternates between a too-close-for-comfort chronicle of the lives of real life drug addicts Mark Kelley and Lisa Allen, and shocking vérité footage of the far-right militias on their periphery. Although the two stories don’t quite overlap, their unspoken connection is the driving force of the film: a path from disenfranchised personal lives to a divided nation barely hanging onto its soul. One leaves with a portrait of 2015 America as a fuel-drenched car wreck, waiting to be lit just a few years later.

(2015, dir. Roberto Minervini, DCP, color, 92 min.)

Sean Baker’s Tangerine brilliantly captures the milieu of the transgender sex workers whose lives revolve around the Hollywood streets near the legendary (now defunct) Donut Time shop at Highland and Santa Monica Boulevard. Kitana Kiki Rodriguez plays Sin-Dee Rella, a just-released parolee on the hunt for her loser pimp boyfriend, who she learns has been cheating on her. Her friend Alexandra (Mya Taylor) tries to bring her drug-infused high octane energy down to 110. Along the way we get an up-close look at their lives in both desperation and dignity. Famously shot on three iPhones, this is the movie that brought no-budget filmmaking into the present cultural moment.

(2015, Sean Baker, DCP, color, 88 min.)