Riding bikes. Chilling in the park. Riding bikes. Getting heated about about housing policy. Riding bikes. Dancing at the Knockout. Hooking up. Eating at late night taco stands. Riding bikes. This film, set in San Francisco, almost seemed like an extension of my day in San Francisco. And it spoke to me. It's a conversation-driven film, kind of like Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, but on bikes instead of on foot, in San Francisco instead of Europe, and with an additional dimension of race and urban history. It's the story of two black twenty-somethings in San Francisco who wake up in an awkward "morning after" situation and end up spending a day riding bicycles around San Francisco and talking about what it is to be black, to be indie, and to live in the city.
The film is exhilarating first and foremost because feels just like you are riding a bike around the city. The Victorian houses bounce and blur as the camera flys by locations that both are and seem familiar - Dolores Park, City Hall, Micah's tiny Tenderloin studio that looks just like your friends, the Knockout (a favorite bar of mine). And the colors are so desaturated tthat he film has almost a black and white feel - like that rare and perfect sunny summer day in SF when the blinding sun has bleached the colors out of everything. The soundtrack is phenomenal too - a mix of obscure heartfelt and dancey indie music, a few old classics, and the placement of a Casiotone for the Painfully Alone track so appropriate for the scene that it would seem it was written for the movie. All the more amazing is that the film was made with less than $30,000 and shot on site within a week's time.
The film has two tales, and I will name each as only a grad student engaged in theory would: the post-romance romance and the search for racial identity in what so some would say is a post-racial society. Whereas the usual plot structure has a romantic connection growing throughout the film climaxing with some kind of physically intimacy. In what is a probably a more realistic portrayal of many contemporary relationships, that classic structure is inverted here: the film begins twith he morning after the physical intimacy and then we wait to see if romance will blossom. The climax, sex, is a given. The real romantic connection is elusive. While Micah and Jo seem to share everything in common - two rare fish in a big tank - they are two different archetypes of black identity.
This second, heavier dimension of this story explores two black Americans who identify with their race in very different ways. Micah, played so naturally by Wyatt Cenac, is essentially a minor tragic hero here: unwilling to dishonor the history of a vibrant black San Francisco, nor let the crimes that destroyed it be forgotten - he carries their memories, and the rage that accompanies them, with him always. Micah's rage is ever-present just beneath the surface of his chill, playful persona. This historical baggage, such an integral part of his identity as a black man, prevents him from being able to moving beyond it and finding happiness (Jo). On the flipside is Jo, the female lead who the director would describe as "post-racial" - clearly more concerned with creating a new future for herself than keeping the pain of the past alive inside of her. It is the reckoning of these two archetypes that leads both to explore their identities more deeply.
This film is important as it explores a sub-culture of black America - the "indie" or "alternative" side - not often shown in film. It asks important questions about racial idenitity in the era of Obama (though the film was written before it), and what it is to be "indie." Further, it is a testimony to the fact that San Francisco's development since the 1960's has been one of massive project of gentrification and displacement. In the end, if there was a medicine for Micah's melancholy, maybe it would be hope. Go and see this film.
TRAILER | NYT REVIEW
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