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The Florida Project centers around a stripper who is "raising" her little girl while living in a motel. For a good portion of the movie, we follow around the area kids as they run through the streets and break into abandoned buildings to vandalize or just horse around. Many of the scenes are distanced, so, you'll see w ide shot from about 100 ft away, and the dialog will be that far away, too. You may not be able to clearly hear a lot of the dialog. This is not very important. This film works on a mood and atmosphere.
Willem Dafoe plays the motel manager. He comes across as a good guy who may be working on rebuilding a relationship with his estranged son who he hires on as his employee. That's enough backstory to have something to go on for Dafoe's character. Many times he is pounding on stripper-mom's door to instill obvious rules like "no more hooking" or "no smoking in the room", but as much as he comes off stern and strict, he never gives the impression that he is a spiteful or mean-spirited or jaded man. He takes his job seriously and has a degree of pride ("I'm going to fix that washer by the end of the week").
He watches out for the kids, even having to aggressively escort an old pervert off of the property. We see his rage in that brief moment where he calls out a criminal's number.
Dafoe is nothing short of outstanding in this film and I feel his subtlety is among his very best work.
While the mother hustles any way she can to provide for her daughter, it's clear that she has no real parenting skills when it comes to manners or conservative attitude. She swears, smokes and instigates as she would with anyone as manic and wild as she is. Her daughter knows nothing else but this world, hanging around these kinds of people who have no pretensions. It's all just gut and reaction, violence, glee and a dead beat way of life.
This is for sure a cautionary tale, but it also serves as a windmill of chance. The picture takes you wherever it goes. It hasn't set up rules for morality, even though there are certain notes that had me welling up with tears as I felt very heavy for the mother and daughter, who really did enjoy each other's company and loved each other very much. Dafoe's character recognizes this, and you can see it on his face, th pain he shares with them as he covertly tries to help them out without drawing attention to bending motel policies.
Director Baker's camera is a mixed bag of Arri Alexa and Filmic Pro from Iphone. The mix is beautiful. The colors of these motels across the way from one another, as well as the decrepit condos are staggeringly beautiful in a dayglo and pastel overload sort of way. I believe this was a multi format picture where Baker had his DP use an iphone 6s running Filmicpro, as well as an Alexa cinema cam, and then printed the final edit onto Kodak film, which really gives TFP a dense and rich look. This is my own personal answer to the stylings of Spring Breakers, another fulked up film that turned me off, unlike TFP, which made me perk up and enjoy the images and story.
The beauty in these perfectly photographed scenes are the perfect canvas for the children narrative, where they end up in rain storms sitting in a long haired tree, or a fireworks show, or just walking on the side of a main drag as the sun projects a green and purple flare across their silhouette sundown storybook master shot.
I'd see this again, though, it'd have to be a while because this is a bit of a disturbing drama. I don't like to see such a foul place for children, but then again, the kids make it work for themselves. I suppose at the end of the day, regardless of what "normal" people see in these "white trash" lifestyles, love rules supreme, even with the blisters of violence and danger abound. There is still an innocence, and what sinner can be brought to the gallows until they are clued in that what they are and what they do, is even considered a sin by someone else's loftier standards of living. Justice does prevail, but we are not left on a note of closure, we are left on an adrenalized flight of fancy with a very uncertain future.
The Florida Project (2017)
Director: Sean Baker
Director: Sean Baker
The Florida Project centers around a stripper who is "raising" her little girl while living in a motel. For a good portion of the movie, we follow around the area kids as they run through the streets and break into abandoned buildings to vandalize or just horse around. Many of the scenes are distanced, so, you'll see w ide shot from about 100 ft away, and the dialog will be that far away, too. You may not be able to clearly hear a lot of the dialog. This is not very important. This film works on a mood and atmosphere.
Willem Dafoe plays the motel manager. He comes across as a good guy who may be working on rebuilding a relationship with his estranged son who he hires on as his employee. That's enough backstory to have something to go on for Dafoe's character. Many times he is pounding on stripper-mom's door to instill obvious rules like "no more hooking" or "no smoking in the room", but as much as he comes off stern and strict, he never gives the impression that he is a spiteful or mean-spirited or jaded man. He takes his job seriously and has a degree of pride ("I'm going to fix that washer by the end of the week").
He watches out for the kids, even having to aggressively escort an old pervert off of the property. We see his rage in that brief moment where he calls out a criminal's number.
Dafoe is nothing short of outstanding in this film and I feel his subtlety is among his very best work.
While the mother hustles any way she can to provide for her daughter, it's clear that she has no real parenting skills when it comes to manners or conservative attitude. She swears, smokes and instigates as she would with anyone as manic and wild as she is. Her daughter knows nothing else but this world, hanging around these kinds of people who have no pretensions. It's all just gut and reaction, violence, glee and a dead beat way of life.
This is for sure a cautionary tale, but it also serves as a windmill of chance. The picture takes you wherever it goes. It hasn't set up rules for morality, even though there are certain notes that had me welling up with tears as I felt very heavy for the mother and daughter, who really did enjoy each other's company and loved each other very much. Dafoe's character recognizes this, and you can see it on his face, th pain he shares with them as he covertly tries to help them out without drawing attention to bending motel policies.
Director Baker's camera is a mixed bag of Arri Alexa and Filmic Pro from Iphone. The mix is beautiful. The colors of these motels across the way from one another, as well as the decrepit condos are staggeringly beautiful in a dayglo and pastel overload sort of way. I believe this was a multi format picture where Baker had his DP use an iphone 6s running Filmicpro, as well as an Alexa cinema cam, and then printed the final edit onto Kodak film, which really gives TFP a dense and rich look. This is my own personal answer to the stylings of Spring Breakers, another fulked up film that turned me off, unlike TFP, which made me perk up and enjoy the images and story.
The beauty in these perfectly photographed scenes are the perfect canvas for the children narrative, where they end up in rain storms sitting in a long haired tree, or a fireworks show, or just walking on the side of a main drag as the sun projects a green and purple flare across their silhouette sundown storybook master shot.
I'd see this again, though, it'd have to be a while because this is a bit of a disturbing drama. I don't like to see such a foul place for children, but then again, the kids make it work for themselves. I suppose at the end of the day, regardless of what "normal" people see in these "white trash" lifestyles, love rules supreme, even with the blisters of violence and danger abound. There is still an innocence, and what sinner can be brought to the gallows until they are clued in that what they are and what they do, is even considered a sin by someone else's loftier standards of living. Justice does prevail, but we are not left on a note of closure, we are left on an adrenalized flight of fancy with a very uncertain future.