'Zola': A Memorable Spin Around The Pole
Ladies and gentlemen, now coming to the stage, give it up for one of the most alluring films of the year, Zola (2021). Director Janicza Bravo worked with the always dependable A24 to tell the true story of A’Ziah Zola King, a waitress who met an exotic dancer that convinced her to come to Tampa for a weekend to earn some extra scratch and recapped the tale in a viral Twitter thread. Bravo made sure that what follows is wall-to-wall suspense, all beautifully lit and captured by Ari Wegner. Zola is terrifying, funny, sexy, and true. Bravo makes good use of sound design, light, and editing to take us for a memorable spin around the pole in this authentic and chaotic indie comedy.
Zola is compelling from the beginning, shaking assets like sound and color to earn our attention. The film employs a color palette similar to A24’s 2017 The Florida Project - the kind of creamy sunset colors you’d find in a box of sidewalk chalk. Fitting, given that these films share a setting. The movie’s opening scenes are completely organic, as Zola (Taylour Paige) meets Stefani (Riley Keough) - the girl who would soon drag her along for an amusingly turbulent and dangerous adventure. The two speak via text at first, each narrating their own messages as a cacophony of notification ‘dings’ fills our ears. This is an interesting feature of this film, as Bravo finds a way to not only incorporate 2015 technology but to use it as a tool in this instance - playing on our Pavlovian affinity for this sound. It is employed throughout as a kind of modern metronome, speeding up when things grow chaotic.
Editing in film can either keep an audience engaged, or keep us from engaging. In this can, the former is true, and we should expect nothing less from the always immersive A24. Take Bravo's effort to communicate the mundanity of Zola’s conversations with her boyfriend Sean (Ari'el Stachel) in comparison to those she is having with her new friend by way of text, for example. We cut from over-the-shoulder shots of Zola looking down at her phone, to Sean at the breakfast table. The discourse continues, but the next time we cut back to him, he sits at a table in a diner at night. Zola, again across the table standing to her inbox, is dismissive and uninterested. It plays as if he’d been trying to get her attention all day, but was no match for her inbox. Contrarily, when Zola speaks to Stefani one-on-one for the first time, the background falls away; the set has been replaced by neon lights, mirrors, and stripper poles. Editing in this sense has guided us toward sympathy for Zola’s decision to agree to accompany Stefani on this cryptic trip. This way, when Zola eventually encounters regret, we confront that feeling alongside her.
Coleman Domingo (X) and Nicholas Braun (Derrek) both merit mention here as well, playing their roles exceptionally and bringing with them exactly what this film called for; X represents a very believably dangerous obstacle, trapping Zola into his scheme. We’re provided an incredibly reliable sanity compass in Derek. His anxious confidence is dependably funny.
Zola, a film born of social media, is an apple that does not fall far from the tree. The experience of watching this film is not dissimilar from the way in which we experience social media; we sort of scroll through this film, stopping to watch the crazy parts unfold, listening for notifications, and even watching heart emojis - superimposed over the footage - at times when Bravo felt like what was in the frame should be appreciated. The music even often ends abruptly, leaving scenes to end as if they were each their own TikTok video. But while the film may feel this way, it manages to simultaneously highlight the delta between what appears on social media, and how things may actually be. As for Zola, she had to find out the hard way.