Victoria (2020) - full transcript
In the Mojave Desert lies the unfinished city of California, planned in the sixties to receive thousands of inhabitants, like Los Angeles or San Diego. Today, in the middle of empty streets, the city has a few more than 10 thousand people. The trio of Belgian directors follows these new pioneers, that look for new beginnings, telling about their experiences, giving names to streets or making long walking journeys of exploration of the space.
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Tumbleweed.
Well, the tumbleweed, T.D.,
I don't know if you see it or not?
It's all spiky and everything, man.
It look like... It look like...
Damn, it look like that shit
from 'Fievel Go To West' man.
You ain't gonna be able to see
no shit like this in LA man.
If you see a tumbleweed blowing in LA,
you probably shoot at that motherfucker.
"What the fuck is that?!
What are those?!"
That be savage.
If I was an insect, that would be my
home. I'd be living in a tumbleweed.
Just blow, just blow everywhere.
Just be like: "Fuck it."
I'm trying to get settled in out here
in Cal City. You know me, it's hard.
It's harder than a motherfucker,
definitely when you used to the city.
Like straight up, when you used to LA,
come out here to Cal City,
it's kind of hard to settle in.
It's all Gucci. I got me a whip, but
it's just... it ain't that damn mobile.
I got to sit up here
and get this motherfucker working.
I'd be wanting to sit up here
and wild out with everybody.
Go kick back with everybody, but...
Everything for me right now is just
fast and slow motion.
The only reason I say it's fast is because
of your boy having his job at KSACC.
And with the schooling on the side...
You can't too much rush that
type of shit. Then I got to sit up here
and try to raise the kids. Make sure
everything is Gucci on that type of shit.
I'm far from home but...
I ain't that far. It's all good.
Y'all just keep doing your thing.
Send me a video, T.D. Let me know
something, you know. Holla at your boy.
September 16, 2016.
It's now been 145 days since we left
Los Angeles and came to California City.
I hope we made the right choice
moving here.
This is a huge city
with thousands of streets.
LA ain't too far away,
you only have to cross a mountain range.
Everything is different here in Cal
City. Even the clouds are different.
Lashay T. Warren.
Don't worry. Don't worry.
Daddy got you.
My little sleeping little boy.
Let's say you sleep like an angel,
but boy, you snore like the devil.
- That's a dinosaur toe.
- That ain't no dinosaur.
It would be a bird, yeah,
only one thing: it wouldn't have teeth.
These are teeth right here.
- Hold on. Where did you find it?
- Right here. I found it.
- Right here?
- I almost stepped on it.
- Hold on. Move around.
- There's his body.
That's all you got to look for.
I don't see no tracks.
This is far from all the pieces.
This is what you got here.
Dinosaurs?
Stop saying dinosaurs.
Ain't no dinosaurs.
I know where all the dinosaur bones are,
they're underground.
No, they're in a museum.
- See, and we should put this in a museum.
- That ain't a dinosaur.
It's something.
December 2, 2016.
The car stopped working.
I really want to make it work again.
We can't walk everywhere.
All things are far here.
Walking through the golf course
is the quickest way to everything.
I don't want to take the long way around
and follow the street.
The streets of California City
are not laid out for my needs.
There's no type of sense
of directions for me.
Make my own road, walk my own way.
January 14, 2017.
I bought a new battery.
Met Charles on the way.
He helped me carry it home.
The encounters that we had in Cal City
was quite irregular.
We ran into a woman with a wheelchair
that the power went out of.
We pushed her all the way home.
The second encounter was a tap dancer
that was out of time.
Charles and him had a little 'Look
what I can do' battle. It was comedy.
- No problem.
- You have to pull the lever on the back.
- The red lever?
- The right lever?
The red lever.
- Pull it down or pull it up?
- I think it's down, or up. I don't know.
- Thank you.
- No problem.
Let me know if the battery
gets too heavy, for a switch.
All right.
See? Now, when Michael did it,
Michael did it like this.
Out. Out.
Out. Out.
Step. Arm.
Out.
Hit. Hit.
Hit.
Arms out.
Go up. Turn.
That's the difference.
- I have adult classes on Wednesday.
- Wednesday and what?
- Wednesday at 7 o'clock.
- 7 o'clock?
- 7 to 8 o'clock, for an hour.
- What am I gonna teach then?
- No, I'm teaching you.
- OK. I need to know the latest dances.
Where you going, Charles?
I got to put you on that camera.
Got Charles out here. Squad!
Come on, bro.
Hopefully your car start now.
Man, for real.
No lie.
Depending on how much pressure is
shooting out, it could flip your car over.
I recently heard that
one of these motherfuckers exploded
and it went through
somebody fucking house.
The woman woke up
with the shit shooting over her.
That's crazy as hell.
Yo, Antwan, cuddy,
look what I came across.
You see that shit? Look at that shit.
A busted pipe.
You don't get nothing like this in LA.
That water cold.
Hey, that is a rainbow!
Look, at a bad thing
you can still get a rainbow.
January 5, 2017.
I saw an exploded water pipe
at the golf course.
It was beautiful
because it created a rainbow vision.
You see these geysers everywhere
in California City.
The person who built this city,
it's mostly his fault.
If you rush to build a city,
some things are going to snap,
some things are not going to add up.
They say 50 years ago
there was a man who came here.
They say he wanted to build
a city like Los Angeles.
He carved hundreds of
thousands of streets in this desert.
Gave each street a name. Put in
the water and electricity and stuff.
Thinking people was gonna come
if he started building.
He named the city California City.
Then he left.
I heard he died on a golf course in
Texas. A heart attack or something.
He end up making the third
largest city in Cali. Land-wise.
Now the streets are crumbling,
the water pipes are breaking,
geysers in the desert...
This is no LA for sure.
That's Sally.
Sally Avenue, I know
where the fuck that's at. Got to go up.
Then Poppy. Corin.
Peach Avenue. I went too far out.
Lime Avenue.
Hold up, there we go. That look
like a little something something.
Oh yeah, that one looks nice.
And it's a wooden fence so it be a lot
easier to jump when we get into the pool.
That's something a brother
could get used to right there.
Take a cool ass little dip.
When I'm in the water, I'm Gucci.
I'm just floating.
Lashay!
Jordan keeps turning off the water
and he's taken the little thing
that's supposed to be
turning on the water.
- Tell little daddy to cut it out.
- She wetted me!
- You asked me to wet you!
- No, I didn't.
Yes, you did.
That motherfucker got a brick wall.
- It don't look that high, though.
- No, that motherfucker ain't high.
Jordan said we can't turn back on
the water till he dries.
- Daddy.
- She wetted me!
- You asked me to!
- Get back!
Yes you did!
Heat wave like a motherfucker and shit.
That one right there don't even
look like it got a gate around it.
Which one?
It ain't about to cool off
no damn time soon.
Stop it, Jordan!
No, stop!
It's too cold!
- Did I just spin the world?
- Yeah, that's tight.
Flipping this bitch.
It be funny as fuck if the world just
started screaming right now: "Aaaaaah!"
Spinning the world.
With a mouse.
That's some real boss shit.
- What the fuck is this?
- That's the ocean?
I guess so, what the fuck?
What the fuck happened
to the fucking ocean?
- Shit look like mountains under water.
- Basically, that's what it is.
Let's check out LA.
Is that the area you used
to be chilling at, right there?
I'm just over here
roaming through everybody hood.
Who you know that stay
in Beverly Hills nigga?
My fault.
Sit up here and fly
over here to Compton.
Caught my first bullet here.
I'll show you where my nigga
T. Brazey used to live.
That nigga was a fool.
When you zoom in, zoom all the way in.
See if he on the streets.
He ain't gonna be on the street.
That nigga RIP.
Why we looking up dead homies?
We supposed to be looking up ones
that's alive.
Rest in peace, T. Brazey.
What side y'all wanna work on?
Like Beyoncé say: "To the left."
- Hey, Lashay?
- What's that?
When you done with that,
can you come and cut these?
Yeah, I got you.
Probably pull up these. Maybe this one.
All of these are deeply rooted.
February 15, 2017.
There are thousands of streets here.
They all have names.
Women names, car names, dead presidents.
The streets don't mean anything to us.
In LA every street has a meaning.
Here, it's just a name.
At work we try to keep
the original map intact.
Repairing the streets, raking away
fresh tracks and blocking illegal paths.
Day in, day out.
March 4, 2017.
Who wants to move out here? The man
should have thought about the facts
that people don't
wanna live in a desert.
Who wants to live with the bobcats,
bears, kit foxes, coyote, gofer snakes,
rattle snakes, field mice,
kangaroo mice?
Me, I don't mind,
because I'm a survivor anyways.
I came from the city. I seen the most,
I came across the most.
Where we at? Are we almost there?
Let's check the map real quick.
151 Street.
That's James.
James and 151.
- So, we're gonna look for Virginia?
- Yeah..
No, we're on Virginia.
We're on Virginia right now.
- So, we're gonna look for McDonald?
- Yeah, we got McDonald right there.
- So, we're still on Virginia right now?
- Yeah, we're still on Virginia.
We still got to go further down.
I see a sign right
here behind this tree.
It say McDonald.
I know, they got Virginia and McDonald
on the same corner,
that's not even popping up.
We should be close by, by now.
Let's rotate this way and see what happens,
see if the phone is gonna let us know.
OK, we go this way...
It says turn right.
So let's turn right.
Or we go this way...
Now it's saying it's behind us.
So, let's look behind us.
That's it. That's it right there.
It's just: it ain't even on the map.
McDonald and 151 Street.
This is the street.
What's going on?
- What's up? Ready for school?
- Yeah.
Let's roll.
I do have to do something about
my babysitter. Not reliable at all.
End up either missing school
or being very late to school.
- Disagree.
- Right.
I'm largely uncomfortable
with my emotions.
Disagree. I feel good about mines.
I'm largely uncomfortable with my body.
- I disagree, I look good.
- I bet.
I'm generally unsatisfied
with the way things are.
Sounds like a sad question.
Have to think about that one, right?
Damn.
You want me to read it again?
I'm generally unsatisfied
with the way things are.
I don't like the way stuff is going
for me right now.
No comment.
- Somewhat? No? All right. We can skip.
- No comment on that one.
I prefer dreams to reality.
I disagree.
I prefer to fit in than stand out.
- I disagree.
- Right.
I'm pretty skeptical about most things.
I agree.
I feel part of this world.
I disagree.
March 24, 2017.
I met Sharleece on the way to school.
She lives way too far and has to walk
one and a half hours to school.
I showed her my usual short cut
across the golf course.
The only reason you're gonna end up
in our school, is over two reasons.
It's because you never acquired your high
school diploma, because of you dropped out.
Or you was just expelled
and nobody wanted to deal with you.
The things that make
everybody feel comfortable at school
is because of the similarities.
We grew up
in the same kind of neighborhood.
That's the strings between us.
Better call Gabrielle.
Let her know that we gonna be late.
All right, we'll make sure we'll rush.
All right, Miss Gabrielle.
Bye.
Shit. Miss Gabrielle want us to rush.
OK. Speedwalk.
Oh shit. A miracle. Wow.
What am I wearing that's lucky?
'Cause any other time:
"Excuse me sir!"
"You're trespassing sir!"
"Get your ass of my grass!"
No, motherfucker, I don't see
nobody golfing at this moment!
Then there's people who believe
that there are alternate universes.
That if there's a wormhole in one place,
there's an outlet to another place.
That if you can survive
going through a black hole,
that you'll find yourself on another...
probably even another...
- Dimension?
- Galaxy!
Like another galaxy.
You'll be in the next one.
Instead of being in the Milky Way,
you'll be in another galaxy.
Because of the wormhole
that's in the middle of their galaxy,
you'll probably end up in another
galaxy. People theorize this.
- Nobody knows for sure, because...
- I was just about to ask.
Have anybody sat up
there and tested that shit?
Nobody wants to take that type of risk,
'cause nothing survives it.
You're a asshole!
I swear to God, you're a asshole.
April 2, 1864.
I have not written or confided in thee,
dear journal, for some time.
This is the journey's end. After a
5-months trip from Saint Joe, Missouri,
our party of 50 wagons, now only 13,
has at last reached this heaven of rest.
It was a long time to live in a wagon,
and it seems now that we are here,
that I'm in a foreign land,
but in my imagination I often visit the
house where I have spent my childhood.
Signed, Tabitha Brown.
July 2, 1849.
See antelope every day.
We passed Independence Rock.
This rock is covered with names.
With great difficulty
I found a place to put mine.
At this point I saw lots of dead cattle,
left by the emigrants to starve and die.
Took a cut-off.
Had neither wood nor water for 52 miles.
We traveled in the night
and arrived at Green River
the next day at 2
o'clock in the afternoon.
The men are commanded to sleep
with one hand on the lock of his gun.
All the herbs in this region
is prickly and briary.
The leaves are small and very narrow.
It has a sage taste, though it is
very bitter. Signed, Patty Sessions.
Thank you for sharing, Theresa.
Your impressions of how they went through...
moving from one side to the other side.
From east to west. They didn't have
the roads that we have nowadays.
So, they were looking for a better life.
- Freedom.
- I'm sorry?
- Freedom. Liberty.
- Freedom.
March 31, 2017.
We had US history this afternoon.
We learned about the pioneers
who traveled east to west.
I think the desert is still the
same desert as way back then.
May 3, 2017.
We stopped with our normal routine.
We knew snakes were out.
We sat out to take a picture of a snake,
to show the picture to Virgie over in LA.
I bet she never saw a snake.
That's ugly.
Just stop.
I'm not spray painting no more.
Damn, you gonna get us fired.
What's so funny?
- It's always that extra little spray.
- I try to do it in one spray.
What type of animals do you think
be out here, majority?
- Coyotes, rattlesnakes, lizards.
- You don't see no footprints, though.
No, all I see is tracks.
What's this?
Are you trying to spell Los Angeles?
No, I'm just giving you all the letters.
- It looks like he's trying to spell Los Angeles!
- That's what I'm saying!
- You've got the "Los" right here.
- Well, there you go. You got the "Los".
We got the "Los".
You got the "An".
All we need is the "geles"!
- It's not gonna work though.
- There ain't two E's.
What's going on, Virgie?
You see this?
You asked what is my job...
This is my job right here.
Job pays good.
Surroundings.
Look where I'm at, look what that is.
Our job...
is all around. Look at this.
All of this is still the city.
All of this.
As far as you can see, still the city.
All the job.
Look at that.
I'm somewhere, man.
I'm in the fucking boonies.
Straight up, I'm in 'The
Hills Have Eyes' type of area.
I'm somewhere
where you bury your damn dog at.
May 15, 2017.
I would say
I already erased a good 1,005 tracks.
You never want to look at work
as just wasting time.
Some people will always want
to come here. Just like we did.
Coming from LA to these empty streets.
To get a fresh start.
Where are you going?
Let's see where you go.
Are you chasing my shadow?
Oh yeah, you got some speed, man.
You wanna race?
I got five bucks that say I win.
You sure you don't wanna stop
for some vegetation, bro? No?
That was some good grass
that you just passed up.
That's a beautiful tortoise.
Sweet little baby.
May 21, 2017.
You can find all type
of stuff in the desert.
Yesterday at work Sharleece found a shell.
She said she could hear the ocean in it.
She told me about a presentation
for school she did on black holes.
Black holes is just like Los Angeles.
In LA everything pulls you in,
everything goes around and around.
And once you're sucked in,
a lot of people don't get out.
I took some distance with my body,
but in my mind, I always wanna go back.
If I don't, I feel like pieces of myself
is drifting away.
I become somebody else.
June 5, 2017.
Jordan said he can't remember
what our house looked like in LA.
I am glad that I do forget, but
I wish I could pick and choose
what I want to remember
and what I don't want to remember.
I forget about some people.
But when I think hard,
I get a little fuzzy picture of them.
I forgot little C.K.'s voice.
T. Brazey, I forget his voice.
But I remember his little laugh.
July 24, 2017.
I still haven't heard
from my cuddy Antwan.
The car is still not fixed
but I'm working on it.
Try to keep everything in motion.
If I keep everything in motion,
everything will be all right.
Everything in life will be straighter.
Jordan, no!
Jordan, two people cannot sit
in the front seat.
- You'll get arrested!
- Exactly.
Can I drive now?
Jordan, stop.
All this shit is hydraulic.
- I told you it was the landing light.
- From a fucking UFO.
- That's a spaceship.
- That's a fucking UFO.
It's gonna go like this?
Shit kinda light.
What the fuck is this?
- That's a battery pack.
- This is ain't no battery pack.
Shit feel like Styrofoam.
It's a cartridge.
You know what this shit mean?
- It's like numbers and letters and shit.
- E.T. phone home or what?
I wanna be the one
building the spaceships.
I fly a spaceship
but I'm not about to build it.
You sleep.
- I would, if I had the opportunity.
- You gonna be responsible if you die.
Exactly. You wanna make sure every
bolt is screwed, every wire's tight.
Or else your spaceship
gonna end up like this.
- What if you gotta leave one day?
- True.
And they takin' all their spaceships,
and they just takin' off,
and you stuck on earth.
That's why I wanna know
how to fly the motherfucker.
They probably wouldn't even
let us know that they leavin' bro.
I think they would just take off
and put it on the news type of shit.
- We see nigga's just flyin' off.
- Just flying off!
Fuck Donald Trump.
August 28, 2017.
Ernie and Markiece will get
their high school diploma soon.
I still have 32 credits left.
I hope I can graduate
before I turn 26 in December.
September 1846.
Five months have passed since we left.
There has been a lot of sickness, loss
and death. We're in a Coffin Canyon.
Ten days ago, we filled our barrels
and now they are almost empty.
Livestock is thin and sick.
James Wright lost a child and saved one.
I feel sad for them and it's
steaming hot. I feel like a desert.
I expect to get sick
going through Coffin Canyon.
I expect to encounter some more Indians.
It's been between 95 and 100 degrees in the
day, making it almost impossible to pass.
Sooner or later, my mules might die.
I hope not.
This is a long, dangerous and hot trip.
Signed, Clara Rise.
Let's look at the definition of 'pioneer'.
What does the word 'pioneer' mean?
- A person that travels on feet.
- Yes.
What else?
- A person that knows the land.
- Good.
- That's what we make spaceships for.
- People get lost in space too, you know.
Let me tell you
how they get lost in space, though.
Theoretically on the other side
of a black hole is a wormhole,
and through the wormhole is
another dimension, time era or...
- So, it is another world?
- Yeah.
- Or different parts of space.
- "So they say."
You look like a smart man.
- How do that feel?
- Good.
Finally done.
- Let me see a big smile, Ernest.
- Show some teeth!
I don't show my teeth.
We know you're happy.
- You did it.
- I did it.
Look at that.
Guess what?
We're almost there.
But paradise will have to wait.
For now.
The water barrels don't have a drop left
in them and the pinto is sick.
I think we will survive, but I expect to
encounter more of the sun torturing ray,
more dead stock,
and not one drop of water.
September 16, 2017.
The pioneers must have hated the desert.
I think when they saw it, they said:
"What the fuck. Where's civilization?"
When I first came here,
we showed up in the middle of the night,
and I was low-key excited.
I see the lights, I see some houses.
I thought like: "OK, this can be cool."
When morning hit,
it was the worsest wake-up ever.
I said: "What the fuck did I end up in?"
I thought it was going to be the toughest
challenge I came across in my life.
Now I'm good with the desert.
It's Gucci.
- Y'all need some help?
- No, we don't.
No, if you turn it, it's gonna
be harder. You gotta to roll it.
Why is this taking so long?
Don't lose your footing, Jordan.
There you go.
- I wanna go back down.
- Jordan, I'm right here.
I'm not finished.
- You got to take it all the way up!
- Go ahead, momma.
- Is this heavy?
- Yes.
Bye!
- Some distance!
- It's still going!
September 21, 2017.
I got tired of raking and took a break
from work. Some time out.
You can't be working all day.
Sooner or later,
you wanna pick your head up
and wonder what's around you.
Sometimes you just want to take
a great big walk.
Keep on walking
till you just can't walk no more.
Your tune was better than mine.
You know, my uncle Andre has one of
those. He just came back home from jail.
He came home, he took it out of
his pocket, and was like: "Look!"
I was all like: "Wait, what was that?"
"Look, check this harmonica." I'm like:
"What are you doing with a harmonica?"
These kill time.
- Yeah, they kill time. They do.
- They really kill time.
They do.
I asked him what he was doing in there
and he told me he was just reading,
and playing his harmonica.
After 524 days,
I gave the city a new name.
Everything will be
different but still the same.
I'm taking a great,
big walk in Victoria.
Sometimes it's hot, sometimes it's cold.
I'm giving names to mountains
and the streets.
I named one mountain
'Dry Niagara Falls',
because it looks like a waterfall
but without the water.
I named the other mountain
'Rainbow Mountain'.
For all my future readers,
300 years from now,
that dig up my diary out of the ground.
I say: "Thank you for sitting up here
and reading."
My name is Lashay Terrell Warren.
I have had the both of both worlds.
I once was on the map of California.
In order to follow up on this story,
you're gonna have to come to Victoria.
That's where I'm at.
Never seen my name sparkle and shine.