Set in 2028 during the Summer Olympics, Los Angeles is shaped by paranoia, conspiracies, and a livestock disease that bans meat production. Protein distribution shifts to powdered insects controlled by Ootheca Inc. A cockroach infestation spreads through neighborhoods, intensifying the corporation’s monopolizing power. Lito and Jay, two hustlers, exploit the chaos to steal protein powder from an Ootheca trailer and carry out petty crimes. Their actions unfold through multiple DIY visual formats, including handheld DV, Super 8, and Xerox art, while careful blocking and composition create a citywide visual rhythm. Economic precarity and constant surveillance target Latino men, and gaming the system becomes an empowering survival strategy.
"Set around the 2028 Summer Olympics, the film imagines a Los Angeles gripped by paranoia and conspiracies; and a livestock disease has led to a ban on all meat production, leaving the main source of protein distribution powdered insects in the control of a megacorporation called Ootheca Inc. Ironically enough, a cockroach infestation has taken over several local neighbourhoods, making Ootheca's monopolising greed even more insidious."
"Both hustlers up for any challenge, Lito (Miguel Padilla-Juarez) and Jay (Jon Lawrence Reyes) take advantage of the widespread chaos to embark on a series of petty crimes, including breaking into an Ootheca trailer to steal boxes of the precious protein powder. Their escapades are dynamically rendered on a variety of formats including handheld DV camera and Super 8, as well as Xerox art."
"But compared to other film-makers who favour this DIY style, Zhang is beautifully attentive to blocking and composition. Scenes of house parties, twilight rides against the setting sun, or high-rev street drifting harmonise into a stunning city symphony, in which a visual rhythm gradually emerges from disorder. Beneath the seemingly casual tone of the visuals, there are also serious political implications."
"As Latino men living in a time of state-sanctioned racial violence, Lito and Jay are enfolded in economic precarity and constant surveillance. That they choose to game the system rather than waiting to be squashed by it like Ootheca's crushed insects is wonderfully empowering. Zhang occasionally makes explicit these political allusions by way of text intertitles, which sometimes feel a little awkward; still, when is a better time to deliver a manifesto than in one's first film?"
#dystopian-fiction #corporate-monopoly #surveillance-and-racial-violence #diy-filmmaking #survival-and-resistance
Read at www.theguardian.com
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