Day
82 Una
Mujer Fantástica (A Fantastic Woman) [2017]
Screenplay Sebastián Lelio & Gonzalo Maza
Director Sebastián Lelio
Cinematography Benjamín Echazarreta
Music Matthew Herbert
Leads Daniela
Vega, Francisco Reyes, Luis Gnecco, Aline Küppenheim, Nicolás Saavedra, Amparo
Noguera.
Production Fabula, Komplizen Films
IMDb 7.4/10
Rotten Tomatoes 94%
Una
mujer fantástica, una película fantástica. The foreign language best picture
winner at the Academy Awards this year and for good reason. A Fantastic Woman
is all about young transgender singer Marina (Vega) whose older lover, Orlando
(Reyes), dies, leaving her to deal with his family and the authorities. Both
are suspicious of Marina over his death, even more so because of who she is.
Daniela Vega is marvellous, and I wonder why she was not nominated for an
Academy Award. As much as Hollywood is finally embracing gender and racial
equality with LBGT films and film-makers nominated across many categories this
year, perhaps they are not ready to go so far as to consider a trans person for
best actor/actress. This will be the next step for Hollywood, as many male/female
actors have earned nominations and wins for portraying trans characters, and yet
no trans actors have. Tangerine (Day 43) perhaps was ahead of its time
in many ways in this regard. It is wonderfully written, the violence and social
pressures on Marina did not come as I expected. Rather than suffering physical
or verbal abuse (it did happen briefly), the mistreatment she does receive comes
in subtler and far more hurtful ways. Almost every character she meets doesn’t
know how to address her, and even when they do, they have to mention the fact
that she is trans in some way. People identify her as trans, not as a woman. A
very sad fact. This struck home hard when Orlando’s ex-wife, Sonia (Küppenheim),
calls Marina ‘a chimera’. This reference to her as a monstrous, hybrid creature
is said so casually that I barely noticed it, but in hindsight is a horrible
insult. It is in this way that Lelio exposes us to Marina’s struggle. Anti-trans
bigots are expected, but instead we feel her pain in a day-by-day way, making
it more real and painful. The cinematography is good, we are with Marina every
step of the way, Echazarreta fills the frame with Marina’s vacant, troubled
face often. He has also made me want to visit Santiago – the beautiful capital
of Chile. Matthew Herbert’s score is spine-tinglingly (is that a word?) good.
Almost every piece in this film are his doing, from the beautiful main themes
to the heavy house music in the club scenes. Like Lady Bird (Day 75) though,
there was something missing for me to make this a favourite. There were a
couple of times Lelio took us into reverie, such as Marina struggling against
hurricane winds, and I actually would have liked to see this happen a bit more.
However, Marina seeing apparitions of Orlando didn’t seem necessary to me, and
I feel this kind of thing is overused in cinema. Perhaps if it was used only
once rather than four or five times it would have been more effective. I highly
recommend this film, it was nearly perfect, but personally I preferred Tangerine*.
Acting 4 / 4
Writing 3.5 / 4
Cinematography 3.5 / 4
Music 3.5 / 4
HWF rating 3.5 / 4
*I am not pigeon-holing these films. I am simply comparing them as the only films I’ve seen with trans actors in lead roles. It is the same as saying I preferred Die Hard to Mission Impossible, if you catch my drift.