“FTOYS” Loves Trash & So Should You
One of the utter joys of being a film critic is seeing a movie from a new director and knowing that you’re witnessing the beginning of something special. Watching Annapurna Sriram’s FTOYS for the first time is one of those miraculous first watches that changes your understanding of what film is capable of. FTOYS is a pastel homage to the grindhouse greats seen through a contemporary lens that introduces the world to the unstoppable force that is Annapurna Sriram.
AP (Sriram) is informed that she’s cursed. This information is told to her while she’s having her Tarot cards read on a boat in a swamp. If that opening scene sounds strange, you’re not ready for the odyssey AP takes across the Anywhere, U.S.A., city of Trashtown. The card reader (Big Freedia) from the swamp tells AP that the only way she can lift the curse is with $1,000 and a lamb sacrifice. Of course AP has neither on hand, so she asks her ex-turned-friend, Danni (Sadie Scott), to accompany her on an odyssey across Trashtown to change her fortune.
courtesy of FTOYS
The world of Trashtown could be the subject of an entire semester’s worth of film classes and still miss pieces of the intricate puzzle Sriram has created here. FTOYS, and Trashtown by association, is at a crossroads of sex work, capitalism, and dystopia. Cops are walking around in assless chaps, people in full biohazard suits patrol the streets, and trash is everywhere. In the world of FTOYS, trash is king. The film clearly came from a love of the Pope of Trash himself, John Waters. One can see the legacy of trash in FTOYS’ DNA. Trash, in this context, is something to be celebrated. It’s underground, anti-establishment, vulgarity that captures the essence of an era. Sriram has done just that, and with an incredibly established style to boot.
courtesy of FTOYS
FTOYS is rebellious in all facets of its existence. It was shot on 16mm in a time when digital is king. The film’s main characters are sex workers who are surrounded by people of all different genders and sexual identities. FTOYS is a middle finger to the ruling order of the world and the landscape of Hollywood. It’s sleaze with a sense of hopeful earnestness, captured in the plight of AP. Even though the circumstances of AP’s quest for $1,000 and a goat are absurd, they speak to the economic uncertainty that plagues so many people who are one disaster away from losing everything. This curse on AP could merely be described as the curse of a middle class that’s falling apart at its seams. Upward mobility is nearly impossible to achieve, yet it’s so easy to slide backward into the filth of Trashtown.
In a world where everyone is lamenting the end of new ideas in the world of film, FTOYS emerges as a sign of what happens when someone gets to bring their idea, no matter how wild, to full fruition. It’s mind-boggling that FTOYS is a directorial debut because it’s so confident in its strange execution. FTOYS is a miraculous feat of ingenuity that rewrites our expectations of what feature filmmaking can be.
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