Downtown, Los Angeles
Mariah Garnett
Life and Taxes
Commonwealth and Council"Mariah Garnett’s newest film, Life and Taxes, opens with a confession that is all too common. As a gentle elderly man in thick black frames, Sebastian, shuffles through what are supposedly the cameraperson’s tax documents, a voice behind the camera announces: “Most of my income was W-2. And I’m missing two 1099s.” This moment of self-reproach, one that will resonate with anyone familiar with the US's notoriously analog tax system, is then juxtaposed with a soft pan of the accountant’s desk that perhaps more accurately reveals his true self than his chosen profession. Sprinkled among heaps of paper, which are presumably documents for his clients, are indicators that give away his eccentricities. Plastered on the desk are stickers endorsing Elizabeth Warren and Greenpeace, on top of which playbills and miniature figurines are stacked haphazardly. Against the cameraperson hesitantly announcing that she “should have more than” what is listed as her 1099 income, the camera dwells on a sign that juxtaposes an old Uncle Sam with Ronald Reagan’s infamous quip (“a taxpayer is a person who does not have to pass a civil service examination to work for the government.”). Sebastian is not your everyday accountant…" —Harry C. H. Choi