A woman’s quest for dignity and love
A Fantastic Woman
(out of 4) Starring Daniela Vega, Francisco Reyes, Aline Kuppenheim, Nicolas Saavedra and Luis Gnecco. Directed by Sebastian Lelio. Opens Friday at TIFF Bell Lightbox. 104 minutes. 14A During one of the more heartless encounters of Sebastian Lelio’s transporting love story A Fantastic Woman, a clod named Bruno mansplains empathy and compassion to transgender woman Martina (Daniela Vega).
Bruno (Nicolas Saavedra) possesses neither virtue.
“I don’t know what you are,” he rudely tells Marina, as he informs her she needs to move out of the Santiago apartment she shared with her recently deceased lover Orlando (Francisco Reyes), Bruno’s father.
Orlando’s ex-wife, Sonia (Aline Kuppenheim), utters a similar offensive phrase, adding the knife-twist that she considers Marina “a chimera.”
The grieving family is obviously having trouble processing not only Marina’s personal reality, but also that of 57-year-old Orlando, who loved a transgender torch singer some 30 years younger than him and at least one social class removed.
But it’s the family’s problem, not Marina’s. She seeks dignity, not fake empathy or false compassion, and she’s determined to have it.
Here filmmaker Lelio and his cowriter Gonzalo Maza exhibit more of the wisdom they brought to their earlier collaboration Gloria, the story of a woman equally set on retaining her self-esteem while searching for love.
One of five films competing for Best Foreign Language Film honours at the March 4 Academy Awards, A Fantastic Woman informs by showing rather than by saying.
Marina commands the poise and mystery of a femme fatale from noir cinema — think Hitchcock by way of Almodovar as influences for both Vega and Lelio — as she navigates a world where everything she does and is comes under suspicion from authority figures and busybodies.
The circumstances of Orlando’s death, a heart attack and subsequent fall, would not likely be questioned in any other context. But they are here.
Recurring symbols of mirrors and water (a womb analogy), along with Matthew Herbert’s intoxicating score of flutes and strings, contribute to a pervasive feeling of becoming unmoored. But at its core, A Fantastic Woman is the story of genuine love, something that requires no definition.
We are made aware that not everything will be explained or neatly wrapped up. That’s just how things are, in art as well as life, a fact that the best of films illustrate so well.
Also opening: Brian Crano’s romantic comedy Permission, starring Rebecca Hall and Dan Stevens; and Rob Grant’s hybrid horror Fake Blood, starring Grant, Mike Kovac and Chelsey Reist. Both at the Carlton. Peter Howell A near-death experience with Nazi stormtroopers during the Second World War prompted inhabitants of the tiny Tuscan town of Monticchiello to make a stage play as a form of group therapy, with the entire village participating.
It felt so good, it’s been an annual event since then, with the story changing to reflecting local happenings and moods: “Our life became one long play,” as one villager puts it. But when Marwencol filmmakers Jeff Malmberg and Chris Shellen arrived in the town in 2012 to begin documenting this marvellous tradition, they found a tug between tradition and modernism.
The original players and set builders are dying off and their offspring are less enthusiastic about writing, rehearsing and presenting the “autodrama” to visiting tourists. Concerns about the economy, farming and “end of the world” malaise figure into discussions both on and off the stage. Spettacolo serves as a hymn to the creative process, but also as a eulogy of sorts to the let’s-put-on-ashow spirit of pre-digital times. Come for the drama, stay for the gorgeous scenery. PH Filmmaker Rahul Jain takes an inside look at life inside a massive garment factory located in India’s Gujarat state, uncovering the appalling working conditions of employees there. It’s an eye-opening sight and one almost certain to provoke outrage and despair.
Dialogue takes a back seat to the visual as cinematographer Rodrigo Trejo Villanueva shoots scene after scene of the mechanical contraptions at work and detailing the drudgery workers face every day. The images are arresting in their authenticity.
Some workers talk with sorrowful simplicity about their lives amidst dark and dank interiors. One man explains why unions are so ineffective while a boss infuriatingly complains about the fact the “sincerity level” of employees has fallen over the years.
In one scene, a young worker — barely a teenager — struggles to stay awake as he labours.
One aggrieved worker notes that filmmakers — like government ministers — make occasional appearances but nothing ever changes. Jain is at least making the effort.
This is not an easy film to watch but it is an important one. Bruce DeMara Ben’s life is a mess. After enduring the loss of the love of his life as well as a failed suicide attempt, he decides to seek psychological counselling. When he encounters a young woman who may or may not be the adoptive sister he almost had, it throws his life into further turmoil. Or perhaps it’s the tonic he needs to break out of a static train wreck his life has become.
Ben is a great believer that life is filled with disparate connections or “entanglements” that may, albeit cryptically, point the way forward.
With his sad puppy dog eyes, Thomas Middleditch is an endearing protagonist as Ben.
Jess Weixler is a lot of fun as Hanna, a wild child of a woman given to bouts of impulsiveness.
Diana Bang is also very good as her counterpoint, Tabby, Ben’s wellmeaning next-door neighbour.
The script by Jason Filiatrault is nicely-crafted and intelligent with a late twist that upends everything.
It’s not exactly a date movie (unless a breakup is in the works) but it’s a pleasant enough story, thanks to a smart script and some appealing performances. BD Denzel Washington has a Best Actor nom at the March 4 Oscars for his most interesting character in a decade, one who insists on the use of the “Esq.” suffix. To him it means “slightly above ‘gentleman,’ below ‘knight.’ ” It’s a bit dubious, although he does try to be chivalrous.
Roman wears rumpled suits, sports an outdated Afro, lives in one of L.A.’s shabbier neighbourhoods and dines on peanut-butter sandwiches for dinner.
He has toiled for years in the back room of a community-minded defence attorney, a beneficent boss who does the courtroom work, while relying on Roman’s brilliant legal mind. The arrangement works well until the day a heart attack fells Roman’s benefactor. A sharp young attorney named George Pierce (Colin Farrell) arrives to change the default mode of the firm from pro bono to profits. Seems like we know where it’s going, but writer/director Dan Gilroy ( Nightcrawler) has a couple of changeups in mind that will prompt us to view the situation in a different light.
Extras include eight deleted scenes and three making-of featurettes. PH