“You don’t choose your sexuality, it’s how you are. It’s nature,” deliberate two quintessential New York City biddies after coming out of a screening of A Fantastic Woman. Clearly, if that’s one of the takeaways from Sebastián Lelio’s latest, it’s saying quite a bit about what even formerly intolerant olds are able to see in the tragedy of Marina Vidal (Daniela Vega). Lelio, whose breakout 2013 film, Gloria, is already getting an American re-working starring Julianne Moore, continues to impress with his daring and honest depictions of a delicate subject matter (in Gloria, it was a woman’s age).
Once again set against the backdrop of Santiago, Chile (as is Lelio’s usual wont)–a place which Desi Arnaz once famously assured, “‘Tain’t chilly at all,” Marina’s life is turned upside down on her birthday when her much older boyfriend (roughly thirty years older, to be semi-precise) suffers an aneurysm. Having to deal with the fallout of this, Marina contacts Orlando’s (Francisco Reyes) brother, Gabo (Luis Gnecco), to come handle the rest of the process at the hospital. Intuiting that she’s going to be treated with suspicion (the doctor has already taken her aside to ask her a deluge of non sequitur questions) if she doesn’t leave soon, Marina scampers away from the grounds in a scene that punctuates a particularly salient feeling of paranoia of the variety that can also be found in a 80s slasher movies. The police, of course, apprehend her and so begins just one of many humiliating moments in Orlando’s post-mortem saga that force Marina to be degraded (e.g. having her masculine name told to her by authorities and that because this is what it says on her identity card, that’s who he is). One of the key facets to this shaming is everyone on the case demanding to know if Marina has had it “cut off” or not; she’s even required to disrobe for a separate examination into the circumstances of Orlando’s death. We’re never told for sure (though one scene alludes to what might be true) “what lies beneath,” adding to the symbolism of the fact that because no one knows what gender they’re feasting their eyes on when they see Marina, they find themselves flustered and wary of this form of trompe l’oeil–“perversion,” as Sonia (Aline Küppenheim), Orlando’s ex-wife, refers to it.
Numerous shots of Marina facing a mirror–a dual image–at various points throughout the film pronounce the earlier accusation of Orlando’s wife, that she doesn’t know what she’s looking at when she sees Marina, that she’s nothing more than a “chimera.” And, speaking of the chimerical, one of the most surreal moments in the film occurs on the dance floor after Marina has gone through an especially harrowing trauma at the hands of Orlando’s son, Bruno (Nicolás Saavedra) and a pair of his goons, and, seeking to feel a connection with someone after the incident, engages in hollow affection (giving a blow J) before seeing an apparition of Orlando watching her from afar. In her mind going from haggard to fantastic, Marina suddenly transforms into a flamboyantly dressed star leading the choreography on the floor. Back out in the world, however, she is still just Marina, treated with skepticism and contempt.
This doesn’t stop her from continuing to do the things that keep her going–singing being one of them. At one point showing up to her music instructor’s house to practice an operatic solo, it’s evident that, through everything, Marina is a lover of life. And yet, like the name of the German shepherd bequeathed to her by Orlando, she is viewed as la diabla–a heathen with “football player legs.” Even so, everyone knows you can’t keep a fantastic woman down, which is also why Daniela Vega is to make Oscar history on March 4th (regardless of whether or not A Fantastic Woman wins Best Foreign Language Film) when she takes the stage as the first openly transgender person to present an award at the ceremony. Because of all entities, Hollywood has no business condemning a person for duality.
