I watched this movie based on my friend’s infectious hook, “This is a real story all based on actual tweets.” I thought this was her corny humor talking. Little did I know that she was simply repeating what the film was telling us, the audience.
@Zola (2020), directed and written by Janicza Bravo is an ADD whirlwind of social media that is common these days with all the soundbites, filters, effects, and make-up tutorials. The world of the film is made like a dollhouse; set against the backdrop of an ominous, surreal Floridian social landscape.
Credit: Twitter @_zolarmoon
Based on the real tweets of A’ziah King, @Zola chronicles a weekend trip gone wrong. Bravo’s film is a fairytale full of deception. The shine and glitter is alluring, but these visual styles function to distract from the crazy story unraveling before our eyes. The DIY camera movement, from handheld to GoPro, that incorporate a visual vernacular synonymous to current hip hop music videos and Instagram Live videos keeps the energy of the King’s story told online spaces alive.
Still from @Zola. Left to right: Stefani (Riley Keough) and Zola (Taylour Paige)
Still from @Zola.
Zola (Taylour Paige) is invited by Stefani (Riley Keough) to come to Florida for a stripping gig where they can make stacks of cash. By the way, still very early in their new friendship. Bravo does a brilliant job of presenting two sides of a romance turned bad. By using cinematic devices of horror, film character development, and visual and sound gimmicks synonymous with social media, @Zola makes sure that the energy of the main character’s voice and her perspective comes through.
Still from @Zola. Left to right: Derrek, Stefani, Zola, and X.
The red flags are there that this trip is going to be disastrous: When Zola gets picked up, X (played marvelously by Colman Domingo) and Derrek (Nicholas Braun) are with Stefani. She introduces X as her roommate, but ends up being her pimp while Derrek is the jealous boyfriend. Zola still thinks she can handle it all.
The sound design reflects this reality with phone-chirp alerts punctuating the actions of all the characters. Periodic freeze-frames give Zola a chance to interject her thoughts to us, her captive audience: “From here on out, watch every move this bitch make.” My favorite aspect to the film is Zola and her boyfriend reciting the tweets out loud in dead tone while acting in the scenes in all gravitas and seriousness. At times, they say the same words and tweets but the intonation comes out differently.
Left to right. Still of characters Stefani and Zola.
Still of the character Zola.
Mirrors dominate. This is not just a facile symbolic nod, but a serious thematic choice. Zola is an experienced woman but there is an aspect to the film’s story that is reminiscent of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found. In one mirror sequence, the two women get ready together for their night out, putting on makeup side by side, as the mirrors proliferate their reflections, the two of them lost in a trance of self-absorption. There’s another sequence where Zola’s image is multiplied across the screen five times over, as she murmurs, “Who you gonna be tonight, Zola?” When Stefani interjects her own side of the story (as actually happened, the real-life counterpart taking to Reddit to defend herself), there’s an entire tonal shift, as well as a color-scheme shift: Stefani’s world is all pink-cupcake-hues, her braids now replaced by a “Vertigo” style updo, all classy and victimized, pulling white-woman rank on Zola, whom she claims got her into this mess.
Still of the character Zola (Taylour Paige).
Taylour Paige’s performance holds a powerful grounded sense of Zola’s own worth and an insistence on remaining sane. Paige speaks worlds with her eyes. I find her facial expressions reflect the disturbing undertones of King’s story reported live on Twitter. Her contrary looks, different from the rest of the group, express perhaps what Bravo wants the audience to think.
Still from @Zola.
Left to right. Still of characters Stefani and Zola.
Stefani, played by Riley Keough is not in any way likeable, but with enough charm seduces Zola. She just wanted a friend but didn’t realize how her White privilege exonerated her to do her thing in ignorance. In one particular instance, when Zola tries to leave at her own will, X code-switches to Patois – it’s not playing around anymore but serious business. X calling Zola a b**** to “sit down.” This is a moment of threats all the while Stefani is quietly obedient.
Still from @Zola.
Strange moments of White privilege even in the stripping culture pervade the film. As Zola is doing her thing putting on a show for the guests, who the majority are white, one asks Zola if she is Whoopi Goldberg. After that comment, the rest of the room roars laughing. Zola keeps dancing, holding the embarrassment in that she is the running joke. In the hotel room in Tampa, Zola decides to stay feeling empathetic to Stefani’s situation looked back in again to being degraded by poor white rednecks, their main clientele in Florida. As if Zola is like her receptionist. Zola has to teach her the breakdown of how Stefani is cheapened by her pay of the basics of running a business of sex work. Since Zola can’t leave the situation, all she can really do is help Stefani sell herself, and leave with some integrity.
Still from @Zola.
The scenes of Zola and Stefani stripping are luscious and playful, but then there’s the moment when a client tips Zola, murmuring that she looks like Whoopi Goldberg. The pleasure is real but so is the disgust. The sex work scenes have distressing elements, but they are also introduced by shots of a diverse array of penises. Heart emojis flower over the biggest specimen. It’s not that it’s complicated so much that it’s ambivalent. Ambivalence is such a common experience to most human beings, and yet it’s treated as a big no in contemporary storytelling. People like their villains clear-cut, and they like bad behavior to be signaled as “bad” with giant neon arrows. Bravo isn’t interested in that kind of simplified binary, and it’s the stronger film for it. Anyways, there are always two sides to a story.
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