The film showing at Corrie film club on Sunday June 12th is A Fantastic Woman (Chile 2017, Sebastian Lelio. 104 mins. Cert 15), 7.30pm start.
The “Best Foreign Language” Oscar winner in 2017, Chili’s Sebastian Lelio’s film is the first such winner to feature a transgender star in the lead role, Daniela Vega. Another outsider film, the script and star capture the disoriented, anguished feeling of society’s exclusion during a painful period of grief.
From a review on www.rogerbert.com:
Marina (Daniela Vega) is first seen on a romantic dinner date with Orlando. They drink and eat, dance, stumble home together, make love. Orlando is much older, and clearly wealthy (he owns a textile mill), whereas Marina waits tables and pursues a singing career. But then Orlando suffers an aneurysm and dies on the operating table, and Marina’s life is thrown into turmoil.
She is treated with suspicion by hospital staff. She is referred to as “he” because her license hasn’t been changed to reflect her gender identity. The cops arrive to question her. Orlando had bruises on his body after falling down the stairs during the aneurysm, and there is suspicion of foul play. Marina is asked if Orlando was paying her for sex. She is not granted the respect a grieving wife or girlfriend would receive. She is instantly thrust out of the warm circle of belonging which Orlando represented for her.
Mourning the loss of the man she loved, Marina finds herself under intense scrutiny from those with no regard for her privacy. “A Fantastic Woman,” is a heartfelt portrayal of a trans-woman’s fight for simple human respect in a world intractable with hatred.
