Somewhere at the very beginning of a recently published novel in our country The old well of the great Magda Szabo (translated from the Hungarian by Marko Čudić and published by Štrik), the main character explains the existential and identity discomfort of her parents with the following words, grown-up literati who, despite their famous ancestors from the same sphere, could not really become that: "Yes if someone had helped my parents, if they had encouraged them, if they had convinced them of the meaning of their calling, if they had had a protector, some kind of base, then they too would have become professional writers, and not just me. But they didn't have anyone to untangle them from their own entanglement..." And somewhere on the wings of that associatively potentially rich lament we reach the crowning part of the story about the scope of Sean Baker's latest screenplay-director work (the author of the films Starlet, Tangerine, The project: Florida St, Red rocket...), which opened the jubilee 20th Free Zone last week, and which will soon (according to announcements, already on November 21) begin regular cinema distribution in Serbia.
Namely, the story of the key motives Anora in the higher dimensions of saving space and time, it could be reduced to two illustrative elements - the attempt to overcome borders and obstacles and vitalism. This is where the targeted "burst" of clarification must begin - Anora, as the story of Anna/Anora, a young American stripper of Russian origin who dares to dream that she has the right to a happy ending and economic tranquility next to the speechless and a few years younger son of a Russian tycoon, is to a large extent a naturalistic and comically colored fantasy about (no) possibilities of overcoming the gap between economic classes, and that when the gap between them is not only cultural but also wider - the width of, say, the Grand Canyon there. Anora is, therefore, a dashing, dashing stripper with a sharp tongue and spirit, and also the ability to defend herself and defend herself if necessary, a stripper who, as it seems, plunges that metaphorical ax into that proverbial honey when it is clearly unripe and dissolves (but above all and endlessly charming) son of Russian millionaires/billionaires on vacation in the USA offers a serious sum of money to be his girlfriend for seven days before returning to Russia and bookmakers of a very high-caliber family business, and their barter-romance ends with real closeness and a hasty wedding in Las Vegas. Thus laid out, Anora, of course, in the sense of associations and analogies in the cinephile's mind summons Marshall A beautiful woman (Pretty Woman with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere in the lead roles), but without the otherwise questionable motive of an elitist and moralistic nature which dictates that "fresh blood" from the degraded economic classes must be thoroughly "washed in ten waters" and "polished" before allow yourself to step forward to a better, higher, more refined, more powerful... Anora is perverted in this respect Beautiful a woman completely adapted to the unbridled hedonism of our days, but perhaps more on that later in this presentation.
Here, in the first place, it should be emphasized that Anora follows the path of the noted and above-mentioned Baker's creations, in which realism is accompanied by an easy-to-see aestheticization and a sense of unadulterated humor that stems primarily from reality, as well as from the ever-generous cliché of dreams and reality. Anora is, therefore, a juicy realistic comedy about the essential impossibility of overcoming the gap between economic and social classes, even when kismet winks and suggests that such a thing is still feasible somewhere under the rainbow. Anna lives a life without the support mentioned in Magda Szabo's quote, left to herself, her own wit and drive for self-preservation, and somewhere at the junction of the first and second acts it seems that a happy outcome could still be pushed to the fore as a realistic enough option. It is interesting that in the case of Ani/Anora, the parents are conspicuously absent (and the sister emphatically disinterested), thus Baker's poem emphasizes the dimension of spontaneity, from which the already mentioned vitality arises. Anora, fortunately for those who have already watched it, and of course also for those who are yet to watch it, it is not a fairy tale or a utopian fantasy of a better world that is still there among us or around us, only we are too obsessed with ourselves, our own hell, and our own imagined needs to recognize it and then turn it to our own advantage, no, Anora is first and foremost a bittersweet story about indomitability, and then also the common-sense urge to resist the inevitable, deeply rooted and ossified. In that respect, Baker's Anora it fully emphasizes the harmonious combination of truthfulness and artistic creation, i.e., creativity. Maybe there is no escape in essence, maybe givens are in fact the true measure of our destiny quota, maybe in the manner of a stoic we should accept bitter and difficult truths, but it is certainly better for the film that both these and such defeatist (and maybe also in a more realistic experience of the world as he really is and what he aspires to remain) realizations arrive in front of the audience in the guise of lively, noisy, dynamic, colorful and above all witty comedy, so they only offered a few hours of always beneficial and welcome escapism.
On the other hand, Baker here, beyond that refined and well-aestheticized verism in expression, further elaborates what seems to be his obsessive dramaturgical tool, to which all his previous films testify - a strong urge to explore and map the ultimate and as concrete limits of organic duration scenes (or segments), regardless of Hollywood or anti-Hollywood, and even European standards when it comes to that. Namely, he lets the scenes and segments play out naturally, so that meant reaching the very limit of repetitiveness and idiosyncrasy, which then additionally strengthens and overshadows the naturalistic profile of the entire story. In that aspect, Baker is the unequivocal heir to the expression of the Israeli-American filmmaker Amos Kolek (for the sake of comparison and analogy, it is worth watching his /Kolek's/ films Sue, Fiona, Fast food, fast women), and then what is universally and overall recognized as the dominant style of the mumblecore current of American independent films from the beginning of the new century and the millennium. Therefore, it can be said that 132 minutes might be too big for a film of this type, but the pace of the narration and the undeniable mutual complementarity of all separate segments Anora yet they stand as strong counter-arguments to that judgment or impression. Baker is, especially after the success Red rockets (Red rocket) a few years ago, fully aware of the potency of his certainly original and unique approach, so Anora in that last and most visible layer, it dresses up in the clothes of drinkable, even action (or at least kinetically emphasized) comedy in the clear footsteps of Scorsese Idiot nights (After Hours), where in a short period of time, even among people whose trajectories and destinies cross for the first time, breakneck and dangerous adventures with a clear admixture of the bizarre and the absurd will follow, which, after all, has been observed as a pattern in the case of films from these areas (as we single out Bećković's as the most convenient and widely known examples Little Buddha and Andrićev Lightning!). And taking into account the clear Russian "input" (which in the existing constellation gives this film an aura of provocation, maybe even subversiveness), in Anori influences from the most communicative films of the late Alexei Balabanov can be recognized (for example, Brat 1, and especially - due to the combination of American and Russian, Brat 2). Thanks to all this, Anora as a usable and functional film, it can survive in the context of repertory films, that is, films that easily communicate with an audience whose framework transcends the initial target groups. This is certainly contributed to by the extraordinary enough acting of Mike Madison in the title role, where everything bursts with vitality and restrained and obviously expertly directed acting instinct, although, truth be told, the young Russian actor Mark Eidelstein in the role of Ivan comes to the fore, as the finale will show us , the third act of a much more complex psychological composition and profile than it seems.
Anora it really has the capacity to show off and make people laugh, while under the first (of course, equally important) layer, truths that tend to be overlooked - social classes in the era of advanced and decadent capitalism are impenetrable fortresses, while the human body is quickly and easily expendable even in one dime goods, and the "slaves" on the way to hope for that quantum leap in the economic sense have only courage and vitality to offer, which, after all, caused them to dream such dreams in difficult and harsh reality. At that point, we arrive at that impression of the difficult entanglement of identity and destiny to which those who aspire to progress are condemned. And in light of that, and especially in the case of this excellent film, a factual dash that must be mentioned, which indicates and reminds that this Baker film (with some controversy and rebellion, admittedly) was crowned with the Palme d'Or as the highest award of the Cannes Film Festival this spring. comes only as an obvious consequence and something that is more or less understood as a natural outcome, and which nevertheless remains in the shadow of the impression of an excellent film even without marketing jewelry and colorful fluff.
