CineWomen: Janicza Bravo brings #TheStory ‘Zola’ to the big screen
Plus “I Carry You With Me” and “Jesus Camp” by Heidi Ewing, and “Pariah” by Dee Rees
492 days.
Yes, I counted again — this time how long it’d been since I’d attended a movie screening during the pandemic.
Turns out the last press event I attended before movie theaters closed for more than a year — all the way back in February 2020 — was for the last film I reviewed: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn.
My first one back: Zola, at the Wilshire Screening Room, a personal favorite since it’s ten minutes away by car — I can even walk there when I have the time and energy. With a start time of four o’clock, not that long after the daily deadline at my day job, there wasn’t enough of the former to walk this time and in fact, I was running a little behind. No matter — everybody knows screenings always start ten minutes late to accommodate traffic and parking and just life in general in Los Angeles.
But I swear the parking restrictions in the surrounding neighborhood had changed since I’d been there last so I had to park farther away, and screening-room capacity was still capped with like half of the seats taped off, so it turned out they were waiting for me to arrive to start the film, and between scrambling to a seat and responding to a text from my boss as the lights dimmed, I didn’t have a chance to fully appreciate my dramatic return to the screening circuit. Nor did I cry this time.
The truth is, I don’t know how many screenings I’ll be attending any more. The nature of this column doesn’t necessarily require it — I’m watching a lot of old stuff, and stuff online. And without a mandate — from an editor or myself — to publish in advance of a new release, I can always catch movies at the theater at my convenience.
It used to be that I’d squeeze in a workout if I was motivated and shovel down some dinner before heading out to fight traffic for a screening a couple nights a week — and a meeting or reading or whatnot on the others. By the time I got home, it was about time to go to bed, and I’d turn around and do it again the next day.
During the pandemic, after a few weeks’ pause, that schedule largely returned, except without the commute. I still watch a film every night around seven — that is, if I don’t have a meeting or some other activity — but with movies online and events on Zoom, I find myself with extra time on my hands.
Time I’ve used to develop a pretty robust reading habit. I read more than 50 books last year for the first time … well, ever — at least as an adult. And I’m on track to finish even more in 2021. It’s a gift that’s probably a post for another day, but I’m telling you, I’m not willing to give it up.
Look at that: It’s seven. Movie time.
‘Zola’
What started as a Twitter thread so epic it earned the hashtag #TheStory has been transformed into a wild and woolly big-screen adaptation that not only honors its audacious social-media origin story but marks the breakthrough of a bold, fresh voice.
Not that writer-director Janicza Bravo is new to filmmaking — her fingerprints can be found on some of the most distinctive series on television, including the current incarnation of In Treatment, Them, Dear White People, and the “Juneteenth” episode of Atlanta. She made her feature directorial debut in 2017 with Lemon, a sour examination of white male privilege and mediocrity co-written and starring her now ex Brett Gelman.
But Zola is a calling card for the NYU-trained theater director — vibrant and assured, with a keen ear for the lingo communicated by text and social, and understanding of the nuances of sex work.
Another breakout is Taylour Paige as the titular narrator, a server at a Hooters-esque Western-themed restaurant whose chance encounter with a customer named Stefani (Riley Keough) sets off a fever road trip from Detroit to Tampa to make some easy money dancing.
Zola is our entrée into this madcap story, a young, independent, working-class Black woman with a healthy relationship with her boyfriend and clear sense of self. Stefani, on the other hand, is a “messy” white woman with questionable relationships and over-the-top appropriations of Black style and mannerisms. At once villain and victim, she’s a dramatic foil to our protagonist.
Yet their platonic attraction is immediate and intense, so much so that a heart flashes on the screen and subtitles translate what’s left unsaid: “I see you. I feel seen.” with some heart emojis.
Along for the ride is Stefani’s oafish boyfriend Derrek (Nicholas Braun) and her “roommate” — a mercurial man whose name Zola doesn’t catch so he’s referred to as X (a wily Colman Domingo). Before long, Zola realizes that X is actually Stefani’s pimp, and they’re not in Tampa to dance so much as to entertain a parade of disgusting johns.
Zola knows her worth, and she knows Stefani’s, which in the case of the former means drawing boundaries and of the latter means raising fees — a move that engenders X’s begrudging respect and undercurrent of ire. Zola is strong and self-assured, yet outnumbered and essentially alone 1,200 miles from home — about as vulnerable as one can get.
Bravo infuses this sordid tale with energy drawn from the internet — cell phone photos and videos contrat with the grainy, old-school 16mm cinematography; social media dings and whistles punctuate Mica Levi’s noodling score; and the characters read their texts to each other out loud.
As arresting as Zola is, the adventure kind of fizzles out at the end, as wild weekends are wont to do — but after events escalate to moments of legitimate terror and near tragedy, it’s a relief that Zola makes it home to tweet about it.
Zola (2020), directed by Janicza Bravo (theaters)
‘I Carry You With Me’
For a culinary school graduate scrubbing toilets at a restaurant, a young boy’s father who’s closeted to his family, the allure of the United States is the promise of opportunity and freedom. Even though migrating north across the border would separate Iván (Armando Espitia) from his son, maybe for good, even though he’s fallen in love with a teacher named Gerardo (Christian Vazquez), Iván is compelled to make the difficult crossing with his lifelong bestie Sandra (Michelle Rodríguez) in order to follow his dream and provide for his family.
What he finds in New York City, however, is just as thankless a job delivering takeout, a tiny room in a crowded apartment, and unexpected prejudice. He hides his misery from Gerardo, who’s determined to join him, eventually literally showing up on his doorstep, and the pair navigates survival and ultimately success in a country they can never leave if they ever want to return.
When the couple reaches middle age, their romance starts to feel real, documentary-esque, and — spoiler alert — that’s because it is, as writer-director Heidi Ewing has turned her camera on longtime friends who only recently shared their story. This turn is a delightful discovery that brings both ambiguity and urgency to their tale — this third act may have happy moments but can’t deliver the happy ending a script could provide.
I Carry You With Me (2020), directed by Heidi Ewing (theaters)
‘Jesus Camp’
Heidi Ewing’s breakout feature film was the Academy Award-nominated Jesus Camp in 2006, a movie that, fifteen years later, plays eerily familiar. Directed with Rachel Grady, the film focuses on Becky Fischer, a Pentecostal children’s minister, her “Kids on Fire” summer camp, and a handful of devout minor followers. The conservative Christian subjects rail against Islam, abortion, and climate change, and worship their controversial Republican president — one George W. Bush. It’d be quaint if it weren’t so scary.
The filmmakers themselves employ an ostensibly objective approach, relying on commentary by radio talk show host Mike Papantonio to question the influence of Evangelical Christians on American politics and hold Fischer’s feet to the fire on some of her methods. Mostly she digs her own grave with, for example, fear mongering over Harry Potter — and not because of J.K. Rowling’s transphobic comments.
But it’s really hard to watch impressionable young people manipulated into praying in tongues, crying with guilt, and going into hysterics with fear — and then get sent out into the world to proselytize to disinterested strangers and protest hot-button issues. It’s hard to watch, too, when twelve-year-old Levi, who’s done some preaching himself, gets to meet role model Ted Haggard, who proceeds to talk down to him. One can’t help but feel these kids are being traumatized with an egregious disregard for their emotional health.
At a certain point, one starts to ask, “OK, but what do we do about this indoctrination of young people to wield undue influence on the political system?” If the past five years are any indication, not much.
Jesus Camp (2006), directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (Hulu, Kanopy)
‘Pariah’
Writer-director Dee Rees’s feature film debut celebrates its tenth anniversary with a much-deserved Criterion edition that recognizes its significance in not only Black queer cinema but independent film at large — a Sundance premiere that won best cinematography by Bradford Young (later an Ava DuVernay regular) and was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize, and won the John Cassavetes Award at the Independent Spirit Awards, along with a slew of honors from Black awards groups.
And no wonder: with Pariah, Rees has crafted an indelible coming-of-age portrait of a teen lesbian and poet that’s by turns funny and awkward, painful and triumphant. Adepero Oduye (most recently seen in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) stars as Alike, aka “Lee” — only her in-denial mother Audrey (Kim Wayans) calls her by her given name — a butch lesbian who wriggles out of her ball cap and jersey on the bus on the way home from a stripclub in order to present a more feminine appearance at home. The next day, the reverse, pulling on her preferred accoutrements in a stall of the girls bathroom at school.
Lee has a strong sense of self, even if she has to hide at home, but she’s young and inexperienced, and vulnerable to vagaries of first love, with the additional complications of same-sex romance in an unaccepting community. Young’s camerawork communicates her emotional journey from overwhelming spectacle to raging heartreak to mature acceptance.
Meanwhile, Lee is not the only one living a double life: at home, her mom and dad, a cop named Arthur (Charles Parnell), are doing their own dance around his infidelity that erupts around Lee. It’s a traumatizing schism, but ultimately a freeing one that breaks her open as a writer as well.
Pariah (2011), directed by Dee Rees (digital)
