Tangerine Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.5

Tangerine Blu-ray Movie Review

♪ She Caught Chester Kissing Santa Claus ♬

Reviewed by Michael Reuben November 12, 2015

Tangerine, the latest film from director Sean S. Baker and his writing and producing partner, Chris Boroch (Starlet), is distinctive in both form and content. The film was shot entirely with three iPhones (the model 5s, to be precise) using a newly developed anamorphic adapter to capture a widescreen image. With some digital TLC in post-production, the resulting image looks remarkable, but the real advantage was the freedom gained by Baker and his production team to work in all kinds of locations without attracting attention. Tangerine is a scripted, fictional tale, and its editing and sound design are as sophisticated as any major motion picture, but the shooting style is pure cinéma vérité.

The quasi-documentary approach is appropriate, because Tangerine doesn't need embellishment. The story is set in the unconventional world (and that's putting it mildly) of transsexual streetwalkers who ply their trade at and around the intersection of Santa Monica and Highland on the outskirts of Hollywood. As Baker explains in the extras, he lives nearby, and after passing these corners many times, he began to imagine setting a film among its regulars. The search for guides to that world brought him, Boroch and their producers to the two consultants (and friends) who would ultimately become the film's stars, Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor. Neither had ever acted before, although one could argue that, for women in their situation, every day requires a convincing performance. (Note that, consistent with both the film and the filmmakers, I refer to these performers throughout this review in the feminine, as they designate themselves. The precise gradations of gender are an essential part of the story in Tangerine.)

Tangerine takes place on Christmas Eve, which makes it one of the more unusual holiday films in a steadily growing canon. In the Donut Time coffee shop, a streetwalker (or "sex worker", as they prefer to be called) known as Sin-Dee Rella (Rodriguez) meets up with her best friend, Alexandra (Taylor), after being released from a 28-day jail term. From Alexandra, Sin-Dee learns to her horror that her boyfriend and pimp, Chester (James Ransone, who played Ziggy in Season 2 of The Wire) has a new number one lady in his life. Even worse, this one is a natural born woman, or "fish" in trans parlance. Her name is Dinah (Mickey O'Hagan), although one of Tangerine's extended jokes is that Dinah's very existence so offends Sin-Dee that for a long time she can't absorb her competition's name, only that it begins with "D".

Sin-Dee sets out on a quest to find Chester and set things right. Alexandra agrees to accompany her, but only after Sin-Dee promises there will be "no drama"—an empty promise, as Alexandra should know, because Sin-Dee carries drama with her like an aura. Alexandra wants to focus all her energy on preparing for her "debut" as a singer that evening at a local bar. It's a vanity affair, but Alexandra hands out invitations to friends and acquaintances as if she were playing Carnegie Hall. She and Sin-Dee shortly part company, because the jilted lover is so tightly wound from receiving the bad news about Chester that every new encounter is fraught with potential not just for drama but also for violence (of the mostly cartoonish variety).

While Sin-Dee continues her search for Chester and Dinah, eventually finding both, Alexandra gets back to work, which gives us a look at the daily life of these freelancers. It's a difficult living, not so much because of the sex, which is a hurried affair conducted in parked cars, but because of the haggling over money and the risk of customers who don't pay. It's not as if someone like Alexandra can call a cop for help. If the police get involved at all, which happens at one point, the best outcome for which she can hope is that everyone walks away without an arrest.

Intercut with these adventures are the experiences of Rasmik (Karren Karagulian), an Armenian immigrant who supports his wife (Luiza Nersisyan), baby daughter (Aida Morales) and mother-in-law (Alla Tumanian) by driving a cab. Rasmik's connection to the stories of Sin-Dee and Alexandra isn't immediately clear, although his taxi route takes him through their neighborhood. There's also some degree of similarity between his work and theirs, in that clients come and go throughout the day, some pleasant and reasonable, some difficult and intoxicated, but all of them unknown until you're stuck at close quarters with the person. As it happens, however, Rasmik does have one of the invitations to Alexandra's midnight performance, and he will try to attend it after celebrating Christmas Eve at dinner with his wife and a bevy of his mother-in-law's friends, all of them older women. Over the mother-in-law's objections, Razmik leaves after dinner to earn more money on fares (or so he says).

Tangerine reaches its boisterous climax at Donut Time, where it began, when the various plots overlap and collide. Tempers flare, accusations are flung, and several critical revelations occur. The manager at Donut Time has her finger poised to dial the police the whole time. (She's played by the film's producer and costume designer, Shih-Ching Tsou, and is listed in the credits as "Mamasan", because that's what Chester calls her.) The scene begins in comedy, but then it suddenly navigates a surprising turn into pathos.

Tangerine isn't explicit, but it is direct and matter-of-fact about what sex workers do and the circumstances in which they work. In one scene, Sin-Dee kicks in the door of a makeshift brothel in a cheap motel suite overseen by Madame Jillian (Chelcie Lynn). None of the people she finds there, male or female, will be anyone's idea of attractive flesh. They look like most Americans without clothes: clumsy, overweight and out of shape. As surreal as Tangerine may sometimes seem, with Sin-Dee and Alexandra in their outlandish outfits, thickly painted makeup and extravagant wigs, the film always maintains its essentially documentary approach. By the end, you begin to see their extreme style of dress and behavior not only as a uniform for work, but also as a suit of armor against a hostile and treacherous world. How else can a girl in their situation protect herself?

Tangerine Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Director Sean S. Baker shares the cinematography credit for Tangerine with Radium Cheung, who was the DP on Starlet. As noted in the introduction, the film was shot entirely with three iPhones, model 5s, using a Moondog Labs anamorphic adapter to capture a widescreen frame and an app called Filmic Pro to allow a superior capture at higher bitrates. Baker used Da Vinci Resolve, which is professional-level software, to correct contrast and color saturation in post-production. Since Tangerine never passed through an analog stage, Magnolia Home Entertainment's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray was presumably sourced directly from digital files.

Even if you didn't know it was shot on iPhones, Tangerine's image would be impressive. It's sharp, detailed and only rarely grainy (usually in conditions where areas of darkness contrast sharply with areas of bright light, like the back of Razmik's cab). The focus remains tight even when the camera is on the move, as it usually is, given the film's documentary style. The colors are wonderfully warm and saturated, creating a kind of hyper-realism that is a perfect complement to the main character's penchant for "drama". Reds, blues and yellows are especially rich, and it is worth noting those occasions when intense colors all but disappear from the frame. There is usually a thematic reason for their absence.

Magnolia has placed Tangerine on a BD-25, and the 88-minute film has been authored with an average bitrate of 17.99 Mbps, which seems on the low side. However, the compression appears to have taken advantage of several quieter scenes to conserve bandwidth for the demanding confrontations. Very large projection may reveal artifacts, but at 72" I did not see any.

(Note: The video grade for this review is primarily based on accuracy, not aesthetics. Whether or not one likes the look of iPhone cinematography is a subject for another discussion.)

Tangerine Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Tangerine's 5.1 soundtrack, encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA, consists of live-recorded production sound and a precisely edited musical soundtrack that draws from a wide variety of sources to counterpoint and comment on the action. The Christmas song "Toyland" is used in a variety of forms, including a performance by Mya Alexander in character as "Alexandra", and Beethoven's "Coriolan Overture" supplies an element of high drama on the soundtrack at a moment when none is happening onscreen. Various electronic sounds and club beats work their way in and out of the mix, usually accompanying Sin-Dee and Alexandra on their travels.

The dialogue can be challenging. Because there was no ADR, and because the two stars are not trained actors, they sometimes slur their words when they speak quickly. At no point, however, is one ever in doubt about what is happening. The disc defaults to a subtitle track with English translations for all of the dialogue in Armenian and the occasional exchange in Spanish; a separate English SDH track is available that includes all of the dialogue, for anyone who has trouble understanding Sin-Dee and Alexandra.

Tangerine Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Catching Up with Kiki & Mya: Experiences, Characters and the Big Screen (1080p; 1.78:1; 10:15): The two stars of the film reflect on the experience of working together and on how the film portrays street life.



• Walking the Streets: Exploring the Story & Production (1080i; 1.78:1; 18:01): This is an informative overview of the project's development and the shooting process, featuring interviews with Sean Baker, Chris Boroch, cinematographer Radium Cheung, sound designer Irin Strauss and producers Shih-Ching Tsou, Darren Dean and Karrie and Marcus Cox.



• Finding the Actors: Completing the Cast of Tangerine (1080p; 1.78:1; 20:35): This extensive collection of interviews allows the supporting cast to talk about their characters and the experience of working on Tangerine. The longest section involves Karren Karagulian ("Razmik"), who helped find the Armenian cast and oversaw the Armenian dialogue. Other participants include veteran actor Clu Gullagher (who plays one of Razmik's passengers), James Ransone, Mickey O'Hagan and Chelcie Lynn.



• Tangerine Visual Style Test (1080p; 2.37:1; 2:19): A sample video assembled for producers and backers. The image is somewhat grainier than the finished film, because the test footage did not utilize the Moondog anamorphic adapters.



• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2.37:1; 2:08): "Sin-Dee's back on the block."



• Also from Magnolia Home Entertainment: The disc includes trailers for Experimenter, Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon, The Little Death and The Wolfpack, as well as promos for the Chideo web service and AXS TV. These also play at startup, where they can be skipped with the chapter forward button.



• BD-Live: As of this writing, attempting to access BD-Live gave the message "Check back later for updates".

Tangerine Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Tangerine isn't for everyone. Much of the dialogue is as profane as The Sopranos or a Scorsese gangster film, and the sexual encounters, even though unseen, are neither erotic nor, I suspect, of interest to most viewers. But beneath all the oddity and the endless stream of "drama", Baker and his cast have managed to reveal real human beings with genuine emotions that often catch even their owners by surprise. After all the frenetic confrontations, threats and revelations, the film touches down in a surprisingly familiar and tender place. It's not a moment that will last, but it's beautiful while it does. Recommended.