The making of Cascarón started as a conversation over drinks in the reincarnated version of Jimmy’s Oriental Gardens, which was the subject of filmmaker Casey McGarry’s first documentary effort in 2015. McGarry was shooting the breeze with Chris Price, an eighth-generation Californian, over the subject of cascarones, the wonderful confetti eggs that transform Santa Barbara city streets into a landscape of Jackson Pollock–like canvases every Fiesta.
Out of that conversation, this sweet and touching 16-minute documentary was hatched. Along the way, I got briefly sucked into this venture, acting as enthusiastic cheerleader and occasional interviewer. I, too, am a nut for cascarones.
For McGarry, an Irish Catholic paddy boy from the Mesa whose parents both taught ESL, making Cascarón was his way of expressing cultural gratitude to the city’s Mexican and Chicano cultures. The film is visually lyrical in the extreme, haunting and suffused with not-so-subliminal melancholy.