2018 Winner, A Fantastic Woman

A Fantastic Woman

Director:  Sebastián Lelio

Distributed by:  Sony Pictures Classics

Released:  Februay 2017

Country:  Chile

Imagine a woman, in her late 20’s or so, a waitress and an aspiring opera singer.  She is dating a rather wealthy man in his early 60’s, and has recently moved into his rather luxurious apartment.  The man is divorced or separated from his wife, with whom he has a nine-year-old daughter.  He left her for the younger woman, apparently unable or unwilling to keep his urges for the younger woman in check, thinking he is in love.  One day, the man falls suddenly ill after sex with the younger woman and dies in the hospital.  After his death, the woman still has the keys to the man’s car and apartment and takes her sweet time giving both of them up to her late lover’s family.  She insists on attending the dead man’s services in spite of the demand by the family that she stay away to spare their feelings, including that of the nine-year-old.  The question:  Is this a Fantastic Woman?

Ah, but I left out one smallest of small details—the woman, quite recently, went by the name of Daniel.  The Fantastic Woman is, you see, a transsexual named Marina.  And Marina seems nice enough, a person with insecurities and talents and the need for love, just like anyone else.  But because she was a man, she gets treated impolitely, even harshly, by a number of people she encounters after the death of her boyfriend, Orlando.

Marina and Old Orlando

For one thing, when she brings him to the hospital, the staff don’t consider her family and therefore don’t allow her into his room.  While waiting for Marina to take him to the hospital, Orlando takes a tumble down a flight of stairs, resulting in some bruising and a contusion on his head.  Marina is questioned by police about it and about the fact that she inexplicably ran away from the hospital for a time after bringing Orlando there; they wrongly suspect there may have been domestic abuse.  During questioning they check Marina’s ID and take pictures of Marina’s entire body to check for bruises--as someone puts it, she "hasn't had the operation yet."  Orlando’s ex-wife isn’t too big a fan either.  She tells Marina that when Orlando left her, she told him that Marina was a perversion.  She calls Marina a “chimera,” which seems to cut Marina deeply.  I had to look up the definition--"an illusion or fabrication of the mind."  Ouch?

From what I could gather, the point of the film was to elicit sympathy for Marina and antipathy for those who mistreat Marina.  The plot was rather thin and the last 30 minutes or so seemed to drag on endlessly with no real resolution.  Basically, it seems what makes Marina a fantastic woman is that she is a victim.

The films is very skillfully and aesthetically photographed, a real pleasure to look at.  Santiago, Chile, comes off looking bright, sophisticated, and colorful.  The acting was fine, though I found Daniella Vega, who plays Marina, to be a bit one-note, not really moving beyond a sort of dull melancholy.  Overall, this wasn’t a bad movie, really, just an overpraised one.  Again, had the main character not been transgendered/transexual, I would have still found Marina to be hard to like.  But while the Academy, the critics, and whoever wrote the film wanted the viewer to find Marina to be “fantastic,” I did not.

Some guy stuck on an elevator with Marina and Orlando's wife: AWKWARD!

The Title:   Una mujer fantastic.  We live in a time in which one has to be careful when one discusses any LGBTQ in a manner that is anything but fully accepting.  In many circles, it is frowned upon, even illegal, to not accept a person’s gender as something other than what they were born as.  That said, I found it interesting that the protagonist in this film is labeled “fantastic,” a word which can be defined as “based on fantasy, not real.”  I suppose the writer of the film, which very much is sympathetic to Marina, may have been trying to be ironic, or witty, or something.

The culture:  First Best Foreign Film winner from Chile, it comes off as a slightly less than conservative country, with vestiges of its Catholic heritage intact. 

Agenda danger:  Frankly, I had a bit of a headache from being hit over the head with the message of the film, which was that those who don’t accept trans-sexuality are numerous and despicable.  In one scene, a group of thugs terrorize Marina with slurs and wrap her head in scotch tape.  But even the people who seem to be polite to Marina hold an obvious dislike for who she is or has chosen to be.

Scene from The Shape of Water

Best Picture that year:  The Shape of Water.  Hoo boy, it seems Oscar had a real agenda on its (his? her?) mind this year.  This Guillermo del Toro film tells the story of a woman who has a hankering for a fish.  And I don’t mean she enjoys a good tuna fish sandwich every now and again; I mean she enjoys getting boned by a fish man, obviously not a fillet.  That story, while more “fantastic” than A Fantastic Woman, is even more blatant in its message that all relationships of a sexual nature are equally acceptable.  Even if one agrees with this concept wholeheartedly, it's hard not to feel preached to in watching these two films.

Rating:  I didn’t find this film fantastic by any definition.  Mostly, it was a bore.

2017 Winner, The Salesman

The Salesman

Director:  Asghar Farhadi

Distributed by:  Filmiran/Memento Films Distribution

Released:  May 2016

Country:  Iran

BERNARD: But sometimes, Willy, it’s better for a man just to walk away.

WILLY: Walk away?

BERNARD: That’s right.

WILLY: But if you can’t walk away?

BERNARD (after a slight pause): I guess that’s when it’s tough.  Good-by, Willy.

--from Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller

In Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller’s tragic 1949 play, Willy Loman loves his sons, probably more than himself, but doesn’t know when to let their failures be their failures, and not his.  The Salesman, 2016’s Best Foreign Film winner, has its own Willy Loman character, a teacher and actor named Emad.  Like Willy, Emad will have a difficult time understanding that he can only control so much, and that as much as he may love his family, it is not always his place to protect them from their own difficulties.

Emad and Rana

Emad and his wife, Rana, live in an apartment building that is literally falling apart.  And when I say literally, I mean literally—one night they are forced to evacuate because it seems like the foundation has shifted and the whole structure may come down on them.  The couple have a friend named Babak who helps to set them up in a place where the former tenant had unexpectedly bailed, literally leaving everything behind her.  And when I say literally, I mean figuratively, because you can’t leave everything behind.  But this woman, it seems, left more than her material things in the apartment she abandoned, as Emad and Rana will soon learn.

Emad is a teacher of boys in a high school in Iran.  The kids think the world of him, like Robin Williams’ students do in Dead Poets Society.  They jokingly call him a “salesman,” because his other job is as an actor in a local theater, where his is starring as Willy Loman, with his wife as Willy’s wife Linda.  Emad and Rana clearly adore each other, and cheerfully are setting up themselves in their new place. 

Their relationship will get tested, though, when one day Rana, alone in the apartment, responds to the apartment bell by buzzing in her husband, leaving the door slightly ajar and going in for a shower.  Only it turns out it isn’t her husband at all, and the next thing you know, Emad is walking into the apartment to find blood on the shower floor and his wife nowhere to be seen.  He learns from neighbors that she was taken to the hospital, assaulted by the person Rana had let in.  Rana will eventually be okay, at least physically.

Hey Babak, maybe you coulda told us a hooker lived there!

This is where Emad has difficulty.  Rana doesn’t want to report the incident, and Emad does.  He feels like she should either report it so the police and handle it, or else drop it altogether.  This strains their relationship.  Emad does some investigating, and it becomes apparent that the former occupant was a prostitute.  Learning this also strains Emad’s friendship with Babak, whom he feels maybe could have mentioned that the previous tenant was a hooker.  Emad will struggle with this situation with agony:  He loves his wife and feels like he failed to protect her.  But like the guy he is portraying in Death of a Salesman, he must understand that the past is the past, and that his family has their own choices, and potentially mistakes, to make.

This is the second Best Foreign Film for Iran, both directed by Asghar Farhadi and starring Shahab Hosseini, who gives a wonderfully understated performance as Emad.  As in 2011’s A Separation, Farhadi allows the main turning point in the film to be muted, allowing the consequences to be the focus of the drama.  In that film, Hosseini’s character gently pushes a pregnant woman out of his apartment, and we only later see how life-altering this event will be.  In The Salesman, the assault happens off-camera, but the tension builds gradually afterward, as Emad deals with how his wife feels and his own need for vengeance.  Taraneh Alidoosti is excellent as Rana, more Biff than Linda in this story, having had to deal with a painful experience and needing to handle it on her own terms. 

What if you can't walk away?  I guess that's when it's tough

Farhadi has a knack for telling a simple story with simple characters, while raising complicated and thought-provoking questions.  In The Salesman, one of those complicated questions posed is when is it time to walk away?  Because if you can't, that is when it gets tough.

The Title: فروشنده‎ (in Persian), or Forušande.  Emad is the not a salesman by any meaning of the word, except that he plays Willy Loman in his neighborhood theater.  He is not the loser that Loman is, but like Loman, he acts irrationally, thinking he is helping his family.  The title of Miller’s play is itself a major spoiler—Emad’s fate is not in question, but his relationship with his wife is.

The culture:  As with A Separation, what struck me most with this film was its looking people on the other side of the world, seemingly so different from us as Americans, and putting them in situations that we can identify with.  Emad is a good man, and he is lucky to have such a partner as Rana, but his temper and his inability to check himself may lead to him losing her.

Agenda danger:  Famously, the director and actors boycotted the Academy Awards as a result of President Trump’s order temporarily blocking entry in the U.S. of Iranian citizens, as well as citizens of six other countries.  But this film has no political agenda or message.  It’s most controversial message is in pointing out the difficulty in communication between men and women, and in looking at when it is appropriate to forgive.

Best Picture that year:  La La Land.  Spotlight.

Rating:  Most early winners of the prize, from the 1940’s on, with the exception of some Japanese films, tended to be Italian, French, or otherwise European.  The Salesman, the second Iranian winner of the prize, is characteristic of American appreciation of film throughout the world (strangely though, India has never won the award).  What makes The Salesman so interesting is how American it is, right down to the Miller play that lends it its title.  Like what I consider to be the best Best Foreign Film winners, it provides a window into life in a place Americans may not be familiar with, and does so in a way relatable to folks who may have never lived more than a few miles from their birthplace.  Films like The Salesman are the reason more Americans should be willing to read subtitles when they go to the movies.