Anora at Lincoln Center's New York Film Festival
Sean Baker's Film Won the Palme d'or at Cannes
By: Susan Hall - Oct 03, 2024
Sean Baker, who wrote and directed Anora, a Main Slate film at the Film at Lincoln Center’s New York Film Festival, pleaded at Cannes where he won the Palme d’Or in the spring, for compassion and support for sex workers. He does not see his film as mainstream, but you may if you give it a try. It is moving, fun, surprising and, yes, sympathetic.
Watching the title character, played by Mikey Madison. put on her show makes you think of Pam Grier in the early 1970s blaxploitation movies. She is sexy, demanding, authoritative and, when she needs to defend herself, does so in a style that terrifies the men she is attacking. Biting is the least of it. Black women got strong women’s roles long before white women did.
Helen Hunt played a sex worker in The Lessons over a decade ago. She was called 'brave,' yet Hunt points out this meant 'naked.' The film is quiet and tender. Jennifer Lopez gave us a tougher portrait in Hustlers,
Anora's cinematography often feels like a home movie. One assumes this is due to budgetary constraints. Viewers cozy up, as though they were in the living room on the sofa watching a five year-old’s birthday party footage. Anora’s scenes are at the opposite end of the pole.
The erotic nightclub in Brighton Beach has plush red on the walls. It is very dark. The undulating asses are caught by disco lights and men reach out. Jennifer Lopez played a raw and dynamic pole dancer/call girl with complexity, humanity and intelligence. She is, as she marches to Fiona Apple's tune, a bad, bad girl. Anora is not.
Anora, who likes to be called Ani, falls for the rich young son of a Russian oligarch. He presents his contemporary mansion near Coney Island as his own. You never feel that the 4-carat diamond Ani sports on her ring finger is the reason she got into this relationship. She likes Vanya, who can play video games while he talks and has sex. That he never stops pushing those buttons might have been a signal that he was not ready for a big commitment. Yet Ani marries him in a Las Vegan ceremony.
The Russian Mafia find out about the wedding and set out to undo it. Enough for spoilers.
Mikey Madison displays her body as freely to the camera as she does to her ‘husband.’ A dance sequence in which she approaches him rear first is a marvel of dexterity and circumduction. She is completely invested in the role and soon after we meet her, becomes its center.
This is the first American film to get the Palme d’Or since Tree of Life in 2011. That year Robert de Niro headed the panel, who thought they were voting for Lars von Trierr’s Melancholia, not Terrence Malick’s film. It was said that DeNiro was unfamiliar with European films. Greta Gerwig headed the panel this year, and no one peeped when Baker got the award.
Film at Lincoln Center brings unusual films to delightful venues. Anora bodes well for their premiere event, the New York Film Festival. Screenings and discussions through October 14.