On March 21, the feature debut of Sean Price Williams (cinematographer of 'Good Time' and 'Tesla') 'The Sweet East' is released – a film disguised as a road movie. We explain why this is not only a journey in space but also in time.

'The Sweet East' was first shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023. In his debut independent work, Sean Price Williams borrowed the form of 'Good Time', or rather, the palette in some night scenes.

Schoolgirl Lillian (Talia Ryder) decides to run away during a class trip to Washington, starting her own journey along the East Coast. In her small odyssey, Lillian meets various eccentric characters, sketched on the verge of caricature. She will visit New York, Vermont, and several other states. This is both an inner journey, during which the heroine's personality inevitably forms and develops, and a journey through the socio-political camps of modern USA, and a journey back in time.

The starting point, Washington, is the modern world with teenage slang, vapes, and baggy clothes. After the most boring excursion, the students go to a bar, which Lillian leaves with a new acquaintance, Caleb (Earl Cave). Escaping from a frightening maze of corridors and rooms, they embark on a wildly charming journey. The film's pace is quite fast, although there is no hint of rhythm: the characters are transported as if from Gaspar Noé's 'Club Rectum' straight to the home of 'The Punk from Salt Lake City'. Here the first time shift occurs: from 2023 straight into the 90s.

Through time, having escaped from Caleb and taking a few stories with her (with which she will introduce herself to the next hero), Lillian meets Lawrence (Simon Rex), an incredibly tedious university professor. The time spent with him takes us even further from our days—roughly the mid-20th century: the vape is replaced by a cigarette, tangled hair by a ribboned braid, a hoodie by a white dress. Here the most obvious association comes to mind: 'She was Lola in long pants. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line of forms.' From the modern in these scenes, only the word 'blockbusters' remains. Lawrence's phrase: 'You were born too late'—involuntarily creates a connection with The Poni-Tails, once again hinting at the spirit of the era.

Next, the heroine meets a director and producer who are making a film, and undergoes another metamorphosis. She puts on a long Victorian-style dress, introduces herself by another name, and again gets into an unpleasant situation. Lillian's journey ends in a completely sarcastically hyperbolic surrealist medieval monastery.

Sean Price Williams, leading the viewer further away from modernity, does not forget to ironically mock each new character appearing on screen. The degree of deliberately ornate stylization increases until what is happening finally turns into a kingdom of absurdity. This is a highly postmodern synthetic product: a teenage drama, a horror film based on real events, a topical comedy, a wild trash movie, a Disney fairy tale by Catherine Hardwicke. However, 'The Sweet East' never crosses the line and does not become something definite.

At the same time, we know almost nothing about Lillian: she borrows life facts from the characters she meets and introduces herself by different names each time. This is too little to realize the poetics of mystery, but enough to call her a 'faceless heroine'.

The soundscape deserves special attention: buzzing sounds, indistinct mechanical noise, an anxious violin, electronic rhythmic music. Even silence has its own indefinite hum. The sounds partially correspond to the era Lillian is in, and at the same time create incredible tension that the soft and gentle peach-colored picture, shot on film, is incapable of.

The combination of cold neon shades and pastel warm tones brings aesthetic pleasure bordering on ecstasy. The romantic touch and teenage carelessness are the advantage of the image, while the sound almost always seems anxious and frightening. This contrast creates tension in the spirit of .

Ksenia Baliuk

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'The Sweet East' is a true teenage protest, a synthesis of naive maximalism and anxiety that makes the heroine's pupils dilated. At the same time, it is a collection of philosophical theories, ethical principles, and political views of different population groups, ridiculed through hyperbole. If you pay attention to the form, you can see something between Neil Armfield's 'Candy' at an accelerated pace and Gaspar Noé's 'Enter the Void'. Although this chaotic but incredibly aesthetically appealing film hides many more quotes than it might seem.

The film distribution company A-One released 'The Sweet East' by Sean Price Williams in Russia on March 21.