Film Review: "Kokomo City"
D. Smith's feature documentary debut is a raw and resonant celebration of Black trans womanhood.
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There are some films that seem destined to become true classics, and I think it’s safe to say that Kokomo City, the directorial debut of D. Smith, is sure to be one such film. Focusing on the lives and experiences of four transgender sex workers from New York City and Atlanta, the film is at once bitingly funny, furiously honest, and unapologetically sexual. Smith wisely takes a backseat, allowing the four subjects–Daniella Carter, Dominique Silver, Koko Da Doll, and Liyah Mitchell–to speak about their lives and experiences, drawing the viewer into their world and their worldview.
From the opening moments these women speak openly about their lives and loves, their triumphs and their tragedies. We learn about their families and the people that they’ve bonded with, and how they understand themselves and their place in the world. They are each individuals, shining like stars in the film’s black-and-white universe. They’re funny and charming, and they’re so lively that they almost seem to leap off of the screen. As Lovia Gyarkye of The Hollywood Reporter aptly notes, the film spends much time “basking in the physical bodies of these women [...] soaking up the details of defiance.”
Of all of the subjects, it’s Daniella Carter whose voice is the sharpest and most electric. In a series of fierce monologues, she asserts not only her own voice but also calls upon the viewer to examine their own complicity in the systems of power and oppression that structure so much of American life and act to put trans women of color like her in their precarious lives. There’s an apologetic frankness to her delivery that grabs hold of you and won’t let go. More than that, though, is the fact that she has a sharp understanding of both herself and the world of which she is a part. Whether she’s holding forth in a bathtub about the privilege with which many cis women move through the world or remarking about her mother’s complicated relationship with her identity as a trans woman. The other women are just as unapologetically themselves.
A less assured and expertly-crafted film than Kokomo City would struggle to keep all of its various elements in any kind of harmony. However, D. Smith is an accomplished director, and in her hands–and those of her subjects–the film quite simply sings. You can’t help but be caught up in its propulsive-yet-intimate energy as these extraordinary women (as well as the film’s other subjects) share their experiences, both as sex workers and as trans women of color. Moreover, though the film is quite intimately focused on the four women and their lives, it also has much to say about the systems in which they find themselves. The uniqueness of their identities gives them a unique perspective on the intersection of masculinity/femininity, gender, race, and class in America, and they demand that we listen, that we bear witness to the stories they tell and the experiences they recount.
Smith shot the film in black and white, and there’s a slickness to the image that’s sometimes sharply at odds with the grittiness of the subject matter, but therein lies its brilliance and its beauty. When we see these women in their intimate spaces–their bedrooms, their cars, etc.--we feel like we're being brought into their world. There’s a poignancy to this, as it allows us to experience, if only for the duration of the film, what it is like to be in their position, as objects of desire for cis men who, nevertheless, are often assaulted by the very people who desire them.
For make no mistake, menace lurks just outside of the frame. These women are sex workers and, as such, they are often relegated to the unsafe boundaries of society. This much is clear from the very beginning of the film, when Liyah recounts how she once had to wrestle again away from a client. Though delivered in a somewhat humorous and casual way by Liyah, it’s a rather stunning reminder of just how precarious these women’s lives are, and how easily an erotic encounter can turn deadly. Indeed, before the film was released Koko was killed in her apartment, and the film was dedicated to her memory.
Despite the darkness, however, Kokomo City is very much a story about trans joy and survival, about enduring despite everything the world throws at you. I had the pleasure of seeing Daniella and Dominique speak during the recent Appalachian Queer Film Festival, and it was extraordinary to see these two powerful survivors standing there sharing their lives with us unmediated by the film. As in the movie, they aren’t afraid to speak openly and frankly about their experiences, and they rightly enjoin those who watch the film to do their own part to make the world a safer place for trans women. Witnessing is good; action is better.
Kokomo City is in the potent tradition of such films as Marlon Riggs’ Tongues Untied and Black Is…Black Ain’t, Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust, and Jennie Livingston’s Paris is Burning. It is a film that is very much of its time and, for that reason, is essential viewing for those who want to understand more about the experiences of trans women of color. To be sure, there are times when it can be difficult to watch–particularly when the women speak of the violence and deprivation they’ve endured–but this is precisely why Kokomo City is such a necessity. It’s the kind of film that demands that you listen, particularly in this era when it has become de rigueur for those on the right to try to push through as many anti-trans pieces of legislation as they can. This film reminds us, though, that these women have endured a lot and yet are still here.
When, at the end of the film, the Black trans female body is revealed in all of its beauty and vulnerability, it is a raw and powerful celebration, enjoining all of us to do our part to make the world safe for all women.