MOVIE REVIEW - A Fantastic Woman (Una Mujer Fantástica)
Some people prefer for books and movies to feature characters who simply and nonchalantly happen to have an LGBTQIA+ identity. They say they're tired of the never-ending parade of movies showing LGBTetc people as victims, tired of portrayals of us always playing the victim card. Dissenters say it's misleading to portray happy happy gay people (etc) having fun, all divorced from social problems or any evidence of being marginalized.
Marina Vidal, the protagonist of A Fantastic Woman, is no victim. She faces a tougher and more transhostile everyday life than Ricky does in Boy Meets Girl, but this is no Boys Don't Cry. Santiago filmmaker Sebastián Leilo includes and shows us the violently hateful attitudes and ingrained double standards, but pits against them a savvy and willful main character, played by Daniela Vega.
The film was shot with exquisite appreciation of texture and lighting and color, and it's beautiful to watch. There's also a good soundtrack, used as a musical background tapestry rather than as auditory cues to tell us what to feel and when to feel it. The performances are direct and spare, with reaction shots understated; the people in Leilo's movie are mostly self-contained, each in their own compartmentalized lives even as those compartments collide.
Marina and her older lover Orlando are in the process of setting things up to live together: she's moving into his apartment. Her bags and boxes are still on the floor. Marina rises from their bed to find him mentally unfocused and having trouble breathing, and urges him up and out of the apartment, but she miscalculates his clarity of mind and leaves him momentarily braced against the wall while she locks up, and he turns and foolishly starts to descend the stairs by himself then falls, bouncing down the steps. He dies in the hospital.
Identities are not merely the selves that we carry around inside us; identities are also projected onto us by all the other people who perceive us. Outside the treatment room into which Orlando has been wheeled, Marina is perceived as a non-family member with limited connections to him, then as a creature of dubious sexual identity who is illegitimately using a feminine name, and soon is being peppered with invasive questions by a police social worker who apparently suspects that Orlando was abusing or exploiting Marina and that Marina retaliated in self-defense and killed him.
When Marina calls Orlando's family and reports his death, she is informed that they will take care of the arrangements. The medical staff have been thanking her for bringing him in but telling her there's nothing she can do here. Marina recognizes that it's a good time to leave the institution; she anticipates that further interaction with any of these people will be unpleasant. But the police come after her to detain her for further questioning. And she's right: it isn't pleasant.
When life keeps smacking you in the face and subjecting you to indignities and mistreatments, you get to the point that the next smack doesn't catch you by surprise. Marina is not shocked by what she is subjected to. She is cold and self-possessed in constrained disapproval, and sometimes provoked to anger, but her hurts are a private thing. At the moment the part of her that's hurting is the loss of Orlando. She sees his ghost, haunting her at the edges and around the corners of the places she passes through.
Most of Orlando's family are among the hostiles. Younger male relatives are violent and hurl homophobic invective, calling her "faggot" and "fudge packer". Orlando's brother wants the apartment back immediately and lets himself into it, invading her home without her permission and taking her dog. Orlando's ex-wife is cordial but states that of course Marina will not be attending the funeral services, it would not be appropriate, the family must be protected from such as her. Only the brother Gabo speaks to her as if she were a person, and makes some attempt to apologize for his family, but his tolerance does not extent to a willingness to oppose the family's wishes.
Orlando had given the dog, Diabla, to Marina. Diabla had been in the family but no one had opted to be the primary dog-caretaker - allergies or other issues got in the way. When the dog is taken from the apartment in her absence, Marian is spurred to determination and an escalating anger, and she confronts the family over it.
Daniela Vega gives us a dignified and emotionally grounded Marina. Bad things happen to Marina but she copes, survives, and thrives in her successful life. Hers is the power to endure. She's invincible.
In Spanish (spanish-language title Una Mujer Fantástica), with English subtitles.
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Marina Vidal, the protagonist of A Fantastic Woman, is no victim. She faces a tougher and more transhostile everyday life than Ricky does in Boy Meets Girl, but this is no Boys Don't Cry. Santiago filmmaker Sebastián Leilo includes and shows us the violently hateful attitudes and ingrained double standards, but pits against them a savvy and willful main character, played by Daniela Vega.
The film was shot with exquisite appreciation of texture and lighting and color, and it's beautiful to watch. There's also a good soundtrack, used as a musical background tapestry rather than as auditory cues to tell us what to feel and when to feel it. The performances are direct and spare, with reaction shots understated; the people in Leilo's movie are mostly self-contained, each in their own compartmentalized lives even as those compartments collide.
Marina and her older lover Orlando are in the process of setting things up to live together: she's moving into his apartment. Her bags and boxes are still on the floor. Marina rises from their bed to find him mentally unfocused and having trouble breathing, and urges him up and out of the apartment, but she miscalculates his clarity of mind and leaves him momentarily braced against the wall while she locks up, and he turns and foolishly starts to descend the stairs by himself then falls, bouncing down the steps. He dies in the hospital.
Identities are not merely the selves that we carry around inside us; identities are also projected onto us by all the other people who perceive us. Outside the treatment room into which Orlando has been wheeled, Marina is perceived as a non-family member with limited connections to him, then as a creature of dubious sexual identity who is illegitimately using a feminine name, and soon is being peppered with invasive questions by a police social worker who apparently suspects that Orlando was abusing or exploiting Marina and that Marina retaliated in self-defense and killed him.
When Marina calls Orlando's family and reports his death, she is informed that they will take care of the arrangements. The medical staff have been thanking her for bringing him in but telling her there's nothing she can do here. Marina recognizes that it's a good time to leave the institution; she anticipates that further interaction with any of these people will be unpleasant. But the police come after her to detain her for further questioning. And she's right: it isn't pleasant.
When life keeps smacking you in the face and subjecting you to indignities and mistreatments, you get to the point that the next smack doesn't catch you by surprise. Marina is not shocked by what she is subjected to. She is cold and self-possessed in constrained disapproval, and sometimes provoked to anger, but her hurts are a private thing. At the moment the part of her that's hurting is the loss of Orlando. She sees his ghost, haunting her at the edges and around the corners of the places she passes through.
Most of Orlando's family are among the hostiles. Younger male relatives are violent and hurl homophobic invective, calling her "faggot" and "fudge packer". Orlando's brother wants the apartment back immediately and lets himself into it, invading her home without her permission and taking her dog. Orlando's ex-wife is cordial but states that of course Marina will not be attending the funeral services, it would not be appropriate, the family must be protected from such as her. Only the brother Gabo speaks to her as if she were a person, and makes some attempt to apologize for his family, but his tolerance does not extent to a willingness to oppose the family's wishes.
Orlando had given the dog, Diabla, to Marina. Diabla had been in the family but no one had opted to be the primary dog-caretaker - allergies or other issues got in the way. When the dog is taken from the apartment in her absence, Marian is spurred to determination and an escalating anger, and she confronts the family over it.
Daniela Vega gives us a dignified and emotionally grounded Marina. Bad things happen to Marina but she copes, survives, and thrives in her successful life. Hers is the power to endure. She's invincible.
In Spanish (spanish-language title Una Mujer Fantástica), with English subtitles.
--------
I am now echoed on DreamWidth, like many other LJ folks. My DW acct is here. Please friend/link me on DW if you are a DreamWidth user.
--------
Index of all Blog Posts