anora (w&d sean baker)

Baker’s films might be said to be reminiscent of Rossellini. Plucky outsiders confronting a skewed social system and fighting for their dignity. Anora, or Ani as she likes to be called, might not appear to have much of it, getting by on her body and unashamedly sleeping with men for money, but deep down she has it in spades. The plucky outsider is a trope that has flourished throughout cinematic history, given that cinema is to such an extent a naturalistic medium. Like Parasite, the film I watched at the same cinema the day before, Anora explores the world’s wealth divides, with much of the action occurring within a privileged mansion (interesting to read that Bong Joon-ho constructed his from scratch). This space is also a voyeuristic space. We the audience, assuming we don’t belong to the one percent, react with the same awe as Annie or the Kim family. We are bred to want this, and we are perhaps no smarter than Ani, who surely ought to realise sooner that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. If there’s a weakness to Baker’s film it’s this: his youthful leads are charismatic and attractive but resolutely thick, without a political bone in their bodies. For all her charisma and street-smarts, it’s hard not to feel that Anora needs to wise up fast, and the film takes its time getting her to this point. It’s also curious to contemplate how the trope of the Russian oligarch is already on the wane. They probably can’t flit across frontiers like they used to, back when Anora was in pre-production. It would be interesting to know what a writer like Sorokin would make of all this: the risque stuff would be right up his street, but he would perhaps have Ivan and family not get off not quite as lightly as Baker lets them.