Review by Beatrice On 25-Oct-2024
A commodity is, first of all, an external object, a thing that, through its properties, satisfies human needs of any kind.
History, comedy, farce.
Three parts to depict the most common stereotypes of the capitalist system.
Anora is a striptease dancer, and, together with her colleagues, she manages clients in private rooms, serving alcohol and exchanging dollars for strings. Her commodity is her body, entirely aimed at generating money. When clients offer her an exclusive deal at $15,000 a week, the opportunity becomes too tempting, her "commodity" gains surplus value, and imposes extra labor.
We’ll see how profit gets distributed...
Here’s the story: fate has it that this time, the client is young, attractive, hyperactive, fun, and overflowing with money, with a stunning home and endless entertainment. Anora doesn’t expect much, just another, this time playful, client (money) - body (commodity) negotiation.
She gets it all, and the Cinderella stereotype appears: Ivan, known as Vanya, proposes to marry her, and they head to Las Vegas with a four-carat diamond, included in the set rate. Everything seems to be going well, but as the story moves from narrative to comedy, Ivan’s lifestyle becomes apparent.
Between parties, ketamine, cocaine, opium, transfusions, and alcohol, Ivan is babysat by attendants who must keep him in line. He’s the heir of a Russian oligarch family, who, upon learning of the marriage, decides to reach New York to take necessary measures.
I value money no more and no less than it’s worth, for it is an excellent servant but a terrible master.
The man responsible for keeping him in check is the Armenian fixer Toros, accompanied by Garnik, his father’s bodyguard, and a new Russian assistant, Igor, whom Anora calls a "gopnik," meaning a young man from a typically lower social class with little education.
Once he learns his parents are on their way, the young man flees, leaving the stripdancer locked in a luxurious home with the comically tough Armenian/Russian thugs. As they try to convince her to annul the marriage, they’re faced with her unstoppable verbal resistance and fierce physical reaction, proving herself a true kickboxer-stripdancer girl with scratches, kicks, and punches.
The search for the runaway young man, at times hilarious and at times repetitive, becomes a central theme throughout the second part of the film.
The farce unfolds when the parents arrive, revealing a spoiled, uneducated young man who follows none of the basic, elementary rules and devotes himself solely to fun and his favorite pastime: squandering his family’s fortune in their absence. The farce completes the cycle, and everything returns to the predetermined system order, with no chance of wealth redistribution, much less sharing.
There is no money more usefully spent than what has been swindled from us; with it, we gain immediate wisdom.
History, comedy, farce: from reality, through illusion, to unhappy consciousness, as Hegel taught.
If she seeks to maximize profit, aiming to radically change her quality of life, his only concern is his obsession with enjoyment: pleasure is unknown to him, let alone desire, which would require waiting.
The amusing "funny cool kid," as Anora describes him, knows nothing; even his extreme premature ejaculation illustrates him perfectly. When she invites him to slow down, to savor enjoyment, he doesn't understand—his tempo is at most set by a PlayStation controller, the only "member" truly in his possession, with the other one nowhere to be found.
Too much money in the pockets of young people is a sign of a society in decline.
Here is the stereotype of the young scion:
Ultra-wealthy parents only notice their child if he’s in trouble and putting the family fortune at risk. And then there’s the Cinderella stereotype: the woman might meet a "prince" who will lift her from the strip club scene, making her a commodity through money. However, here reality is far from the fairy tale of the cinematic Pretty Woman.
The dialectic of thesis, antithesis, synthesis—that is, consciousness, self-awareness, and reason—reveals a total representation of rationality within the reality of the contemporary world system, an order that’s almost unchangeable.
If the story (thesis) seems to take a different turn (antithesis/comedy) only to reach the farce (synthesis) and continue its Hegelian eschatological path, it completes itself in the self-celebration of the techno-capitalistic process of the system.
Anora, the Uzbek girl, is one of the many means/commodities/bodies for use and consumption in a humanly, too humanly driven delirium. It’s hard to imagine a more fitting ending that aligns with the conceptual structure of the film.
The precise gaze on cultural stereotypes, the patriarchal linguistic clichés created by men and perpetuated by women who can't emancipate themselves from it: the pre-packaged word system that declares, categorizes, and judges.
Not everyone can conceptualize such a mainstream product, and Sean Baker succeeds, delivering a heavy blow to the childish, illusory hopes of change.
The metaphor is set!
Rule
1: Never lose money.
Rule #2: Never forget Rule #1
#25-Oct-2024 by Beatrice