It’s extremely difficult to write about this film. I’ve maintained a ferrous position in terms of not connecting to it beyond praising Daniela Vega’s performance in it, and after reading some comments online as well as experiences/reviews written by trans folk, it’s important of me to say that I’ll maybe never understand what’s it like to live in that skin and there’s nothing that can be truly compared to it, no matter how much hateful metaphors and comparisons have been made. Being transexual isn’t something I’ll likely get to experience, but it’s something I deeply admire and been in close relation with: it’s a stressful existence, mainly because it’s so hard to just be trans as society and governments just seem to deny your own being; it’s also tiring, to try to fight everyone you meet that doubt your very identity; it’s also frustrating, a continuous path of posts that signal your “advance”, I just can’t imagine what it’s like to see that onscreen as well as being it portrayed through the lens of a straight cis male like me.
And sure the film is filled with tired double imagery, as if there were anything double about the trans experience (they are among the most determinate people that I know and they take none of your bullshit), and it relies heavily in certain fantasy sequences to alleviate most of the negative baggage associated with the portrayal itself (the wind Marina fights against, the dance choreography towards the end that liberates her being), but at the core of it all there’s the character of Marina, but not only that, there’s Daniela Vega, who invites her character with such a spectacular force and might that it’s inescapable in terms of just how endearing her path becomes to the viewer, and sure that could be negative as it renders her as a person who’s only descriptive is being trans and how her life becomes a pitiable thing for us non-trans, but sadly the craft of Lelio and the rest of the people is so minutely constructed, that it just works towards building that emotion, which is sadly what ends up counting for most audiences and what got to me in the end.
Although I’m not an unconscious watcher, I was aware of the faults of this film, specially when it comes to the barrage of mean stuff that happens to Marina in the film, and I can think of much better examples of films that render and naturalize the trans experience in other films from Chile, movies like Naomi Campbel (2013) or El Diablo es magnífico (2016), but in the end no one here can truly get mad about it: bigots and fascists have undermined this film as some sort of attack against the “good manners” and have misgendered Daniela Vega to insulting extremes, to be against this film is to be part of that group. Please try to understand me.
7/10
Overlook's Corridor 