When used as settings in movies and other stories, tropical locations are typically a place of escape or exotic thrill. The sun, blue waves, and colorful plants evoke peace and bliss. And yet, these places, in real life, are often tough to live in: Their economies are often impoverished, their streets sometimes filled with crime, and their residents often living in isolation. It’s tough to soak in the natural beauty around you when it’s what you’re surrounded by every dull or dangerous day.
This contradiction has been probed before, including in Sean Baker’s film The Florida Project and Graham Greene’s book Our Man in Havana. Jesse LoCascio’s short Sunset Smudge offers a new lens on this conundrum, rendering the dissociation found between the gorgeous sights of small-town Florida and the alienating reality of actually living there. He writes: “Everyone talks about this place like it’s paradise. Palms, sun, low state income tax. A place to escape to. But it’s not that… It’s a glossy, sun-drenched lie.”
LoCascio, who wrote, shot, and edited the short, ties the beauty of a small Florida coastal town with a beautiful young woman applying makeup who narrates the film with a wounded, low-key delivery. The woman, named “Florida Girl” in the credits and played by Callie Dixon, could be a resident in the town or could be a cipher for the town itself.
The film is a gorgeous tone poem, a series of bright but lonely exterior shots alternating with a close-up on Florida Girl. The film’s mood is evocative enough that it conveys its point even without the narration: the contrasting images, the emptiness rendered with brilliant hues. But LoCascio’s words, as read by Dixon, bring the idea and conflict into even sharper relief.
The biggest strength of Sunset Smudge is the intoxicating, almost hyper-real cinematography by LoCascio. He captured the footage on iPhone and Sony MiniDV cameras, and the sharp cleanliness of the images works perfectly for the film’s mood. Moments of the short break out into grainy abstraction or colorful distortion, as if the image is breaking apart at the seams. LoCascio has a background working camera crew on other film projects, and his experience in framing shots and his photographer’s instincts result in some really beautiful compositions.
Dixon makes a wonderful and warm human presence that prevents the film from becoming too cerebral or conceptual. She has experience as a model, and a natural confidence and vulnerability as the camera lingers on her face. And her reading of LoCascio’s script suggests an authentic engagement with the disillusionment.
The short features an original score by Katalin Kult which is pleasant and evocative with just a thrum of menace to it, particularly in the film’s opening moments, which amplifies everything else that LoCascio and Dixon are doing here. This is Kult’s first film credit as composer, and I’d like to hear something more expansive by them.
LoCascio has a very sharp eye and a knack for conveying complex ideas with both writing and visuals. He is currently wrapping a new, more narrative short. I’d love to see him direct a feature-length project.
Sunset Smudge (8 min.) is written, directed, and shot by Jesse LoCascio. It has played at two festivals (Long Beach Underground Film Festival and River Valley Film Festival), and is scheduled to screen at NYC’s Museum of the Moving Image during the Junk Dump Film Festival in September. It is not currently streaming online, but you can contact Jesse at jesseplocascio@gmail.com for more information. You can hear him speak more about the film with The Hollywood Times here.
The film stars Callie Dixon. The film score is by Katalin Kult. The attractive titling on the film is by Charlotte White.
Dan Stalcup is the film critic for The New Cinephile and The Goods. Reach him at dan.stalcup@gmail.com.