A Fantastic Woman
A fantastic woman made history. But enough about Daniela Vega; the film is also exceptional. This Chilean arthouse darling has garnered endless praise for its tender and profound representation of Marina Vidal (Vega), a transgendered woman assailed by institutionalised and day-to-day hatred following the death of her lover Orlando (Francisco Reyes). However, amidst the positive socio-political ripples that the film has caused, we should not lose sight of the fact that this is a dazzling cinematic vision, accessorised with sensational acting and sheer storytelling brilliance.
Director/writer Sebastian Lelio brings the same tenderness and warmth to this daring venture as he did with Gloria, a middle-aged romantic comedy. Although comparatively, A Fantastic Woman is nowhere near as chirpy, when morsels of optimism are found they make the story shine like club lights on a disco ball. Vega is spell-binding as Marina. In a medley of singing, dancing and electrifying acting, this film belongs to Vega through and through and ends up being a vessel for her performance of a lifetime that will stay with you long after the credits have rolled, the lights have lifted, and everyone has left the auditorium.
Unlike other films featuring transgendered protagonists, such as 52 Tuesdays, where the emphasis of transitioning largely focuses on the family’s response, or the narrative attention split 50:50 between the cisgendered and transgendered lovers in Something Must Break, A Fantastic Woman gives every scene unreservedly to its trans heroine. There is barely a second that Marina isn’t squarely in-shot in all her magnificence or, if she isn’t, it’s only because she’s about to come right back into view with more defiance, compassion and empathy and the odd spat of jumping on car roofs.
Mesmeric, psychedelic, graceful, this is a flick almost too artsy for its high heels, and sections could easily pass for trippy music videos (think Lady Gaga collaborating with Nicolas Winding Refn). Just when you’ve been suitably dazzled, the film snaps its fingers and becomes an intimate, raw and stripped-back tragedy. Marina fiercely locks eyes with the camera and allows you to see every wave of grief and compassion that those who see her as a sub-human are too ignorant or scared to admit is there. The film gives her her moment in the spotlight in a way that those she comes into contact with would never allow her. You feel every aggression against her as acutely as coarse sand-paper being drawn across your skin. From a violent assault to the barbed micro-aggressions, you see Marina cast out, spurned and generally treated with even less humanity than her deceased partner’s dog Diabla.
Marina is fated to work twice as hard as everyone else for one tenth of the recognition and a mere percentile of the love. Yet, this isn’t a depressing story, it’s a film about triumph over adversity, of love over stupidity and joie de vivre over violence. Where others would have let themselves be flattened by the weight of prejudice, when life kicks her to the ground and spits on her, she just gets back up and carries on walking. “We’re the same,” Marina tells Bruno, the transphobic ignoramus son of Orlando. But she’s wrong, they aren’t the same at all, because she is so much splendidly better than him, never once stooping to his pathetic level, she allows dance, love and song to drive her forward. She is stronger than them all. Frankly, without Vega, the film would just be called ‘A Woman’
9/10
