Framing Agnes

Academic filmmaking, not in a good way. I wanted to like it and am the right audience, so am more disappointed. The best thing about it is getting trans actors on screen (Gil-Peterson is great on screen, wish there was way more Angelica, less of the director who shows up in almost every scene for some reason). But there are better ways to do that. The storytelling is confusing. The editing is all over the place. This could have been a very good movie. But what we get is pretentious and rushed. Lotsa jargon. Lotsa postmodern meta stuff that would have made more sense, and been more original, 10-20 years ago. This content could have been interesting but it's mishandled. Not sure anyone outside of the festival crowd and certain kinds of critics will find things to like here if they're being honest. Maybe if the core story was clearer and more thought was put into putting it together, the "experimental" departures would be more meaningful, and this could actually reach beyond elite insiders.

Anyone who believes that he/she has a good handle on understanding transgender culture and sensibilities is bound to have his/her eyes thrust wide open by this thoughtful, inventive documentary from writer-director Chase Joynt. In creating this offering, the filmmaker seeks to enliven the little-known life experiences of mid-20th Century transgender pioneers like the title character and how they blazed trails for those who followed, particularly in terms of their challenges related to acceptance and often having to trade one set of unfulfilling circumstances for another, in both cases as a result of society's rigid gender role expectations. The film also addresses how these questions were often compounded by other significant considerations, especially for minorities, such as the pervasive and persistent existence of racial inequities in the days before the Civil Rights Movement, conditions that rendered these transgender individuals virtually invisible. And the picture also shows how many of those issues have lingered to this day, with change only now beginning to emerge in some regards. This is all accomplished through an intriguing juxtaposition of the observations of contemporary transgender historians and re-created actor-portrayed interviews of community pioneers by a fictional TV talk show host who's based on UCLA sociologist Harold Garfinkel, an early researcher of this subject. Both of the foregoing elements are further intercut with interviews of the transgender performers who portray these community trailblazers, dialogues in which they provide their insights into the characters they play, as well as descriptions of events from their own life experiences. This mix of narrative components makes for an intriguing, enlightening watch, one that moves along at a refreshingly brisk pace thanks to its astute observations and economical 1:15.00 runtime. To be honest, though, as informative as the talk show sequences are (presented in a 1950-ish black-and-white format a la The Mike Wallace Interview), the use of this storytelling device feels somewhat contrived (if not more than a little precious), despite the depth of the revelations to come out of them. Still, there's ample food for thought packed into this 2022 Sundance Film Festival award winner, much of it illuminating about both this diverse community and the notion of gender itself, regardless of one's leanings.

This was my least favorite film I saw at Sundance (Fire of Love was probably my favorite). I'm guessing the source material was interesting enough, so it's too bad it turned out this way. I can understand why the topic would impress festival critics. I'm also really glad to see more trans films coming out over the last few years (all the other ones I've seen were better than this one).

I have to be honest though, I mostly agree with the other review that says this could have been a much better film than the one that was screened. The problem is the way that Framing Agnes tells its story is confusing, and not in a way that pays back interpretation beyond what the film already tells you about itself. The pacing was off too. And it wasn't visually exciting. Somehow a 75-minute feature felt like it dragged for over 2 hours. At parts, this felt like a student film, its heart is in the right place but it fails -- and not in an interesting way.

Also I'm also a fan of reenactments and experimental fiction elements in documentaries. For a couple of decades I've seen many films blur history and fiction. Maybe the most creative and stunning and well known example was The Act of Killing. Framing Agnes tries to use reenactment to produce a counternarrative to the representation of trans people in history, on TV, and other contexts. In theory that's a promising idea. In practice it doesn't work well. What the film does just isn't as new as at least one of the reviews I read claimed. A couple of the performances are really strong, which is why I'm higher on this than the other reviewer even though I agree about the director's awkward performance. Still, the reenacted segments are both poorly integrated and the writing is mostly flat. The takeaways about trans people might have been more surprising or meaningful 10 years ago than they are now. I'm sure this film will win festival awards but I can't see it finding an audience beyond a smaller group of people who want to see a film that unfortunately isn't there.

This is a weak documentary and an even worse experimental film. The focus on 1960s sociological cases of transgender people had lots of potential and could have potentially served as a powerful response to terrible representations of trans people in media. The problem is that the documentary mostly engages in ponderous, clumsy, and self-congratulatory naval gazing without yielding real insights or lessons that couldn't be gained from other, more engaging viewing. Sadly, this film doesn't work well either as an educational or experimental film. It takes a fairly familiar critical approach to archives and documentary through reflexive reenactments. But those reenactments are mostly awkward, especially in the writing and also because of some flat performances -- with the exception of successful acting from Angelica Ross and Zackary Drucker. The editing throughout the movie is also confusing and doesn't even give us stylistically meaningful confusion. This is a movie that works much better in the description than it does in its execution. I went to the opening weekend of the movie and had high hopes, but came away more bored than I expected given the topic.

This is being shown as part of the Seattle International Film Festival.

I found this a heart-tugging dialog on gender experience, focusing on the experience of trans-gender "now" and in the past. The past experience comes from academic interviews conducted by academic researchers at UCLA, brought to life by modern trans actors. These interviews of course are limited to the questions asked in the room, and further limited by what was shared in this presentation, and thus the nature of the actual lives lived is two-dimensional. I found the interplay with the modern insights that the trans actors and academics drew from these interviews compelling and moving. In some ways, In some ways, I found the documentary to be more about them than the actual interviewees.

I watched this production with an open heart and mind. I had no known preconceptions - documentaries by far are often opinion pieces based on collected facts. They related what is seen in the eye of the "producers."

Various people have been negative on this title for various reasons. I still would recommend it being watched.

For me, "Framing Agnes" compellingly reiterates the humanity of all members of our species. People trying to live, and trying to live in their truth.