Lagoona Bloo, a drag pop singer, brings the audience into her world for a short moment in time.
Director, cinematographer, editor Austin Nunes brings to the screen a story of love, acceptance, and forgiveness through the lens of a drag queen finding herself, accepting herself, and becoming her full potential. The film here is well done with images that are both solid and delicate at the same time, offering a vulnerable power and giving the viewer a true view into the world of Lagoona Bloo. Of course, this world is what she makes it, especially on stage and while in drag, but that world is lovely, charming, warm, and welcoming. Out of drag, David Brumfield is shown as caring, loving, ambitious, and most of all, human. The film here is a great view into the life and mind of a drag performer and done with tact and love.
Brumfield has a great presence on screen and Bloo is fantastic to watch perform. Both sides of his personality and the performance aspect of this short film make for a breezy watch and one that makes the viewer want to see and know more about both Brumfield and Bloo. The presence shown here, the personality, the humanity, all sell the film and the story and keep the viewer involved from opening to end of the credits.
The cinematography by Autin Nunes here is lovely, it makes great use of light and framing, showing careful attention to details and how a performance can be brought to the screen without too much loss of excitement. The way the film shot is beautiful with lighting that should make quite a few feature-length documentaries (and a few fiction films) jealous. The lighting here is amazing, divine even, showing the world how it’s and how you should light a performer like Lagoona Bloo.
Into the Bloo is a lovely window into the life and career of Brumfield/Bloo, carefully showing the performer at different stages of their life and career with a bit of archival footage, some photos, and a whole lot of new footage focusing on Brumfield speaking and Bloo performing. This short film shows how powerful and well-crafted the format can be and how it can be used to great effect in the documentary field. This is a charming, entertaining, emotional, and powerful short format documentary.