Rebellion and Restriction CHILDHOOD IN CUSTODY AND THE FLORIDA PROJECT
In the first two minutes of Sean Baker’s The Florida Project (2017), we are presented with both the crushing boredom and joyful chaos of childhood. The establishing shot introduces us to six-year-old Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) and her friend Scooty (Christopher Rivera). The two young companions lean listlessly against a garish, mauve-coloured building: Moonee, in a bright yellow T-shirt, restlessly tapping her feet together as Scooty stares off screen, lost in his own thoughts. This lethargic reverie is suddenly interrupted by another child, Dicky (Aiden Malik), who runs up and breathlessly informs them of the arrival of ‘freshies’ at a nearby motel, Futureland. Instantly animated by this news, the children leap up, screaming in unison, and run off to taunt the new tenants. Kool & the Gang’s ‘Celebration’ kicks in as the title credits play out on the mauve wall. This colourful and chaotic snapshot of childhood rebellion and joy is just one facet of Baker’s extraordinary film. The film is a nuanced and complex mediation on the experiences of tenants in low-cost apartments just outside of Walt Disney World – the close geographical proximity to the self-designated epicentre of childhood (‘The Most Magical Place on Earth’1 ) only accentuating the sharp contrast between these two worlds. Positioning itself in the shadow of this glorified behemoth of commodified childhood in which ‘Dreams Come True’2 (at a recommended retail price), Baker’s film sheds light on the disparities of childhood experience and the underlying socio-economic structures that dictate how a child’s wellbeing is understood and categorised by the law. It calls into question how we characterise a ‘good’ childhood and who determines the rightful way to bring up a child.
The question of a child’s welfare is a common thread in cinematic representations of childhood and often paired with narratives (Robert Benton, 1979) or (Scott McGehee & David Siegel, 2012), or reflect on histories of abuse, like (Gregg Araki, 2004) or (Lee Daniels, 2009). There is also a tendency, surfacing in films such as (Dorota Kędzierzawska, 1994), (Lukas Moodysson, 2002) and Hirokazu Koreeda’s exceptionally affecting (2004), to couple these narratives of childhood to broader social issues such as state intervention in circumstances of severe neglect. The presence of children in these narratives often underscores the depravity of the situation: the child acting as a symbol of innocence or purity in stark contrast to the bad behaviour of parents, caregivers or the state. What interests me about is the way it engages with questions of parental responsibility through Moonee herself: the character and the film form become almost inseparable. The colour, vitality and pace of the film are synonymous with Moonee, who bursts onto the screen and moves through these cinematic spaces with joyful, brazen self-confidence. I contrast this celebration of rebellious gusto with the restrained comportment of Julien (Thomas Gioria) from Xavier Legrand’s (2017). My exploration of this continuum from exuberant rebellion to painful restriction is also a study of each film’s form: how they look, sound, move and feel.
