michael-young-585

There is always something a bit 'off' about foreign flicks. I suspect it is mostly a cultural thing and my feelings probably reflect more on me than they do on the film, but foreign films seem, to me, intrinsically challenging - I have to work hard to understand them.

I don't think it is entirely the language thing, although not being really proficient in any language except English, I find that the captions to be a bit stilted and often not entirely consistent with what I think I am seeing. Perhaps it is my 'American' requirement for vivid action and intense emotions - I admit our culture doesn't exactly value subtlety and nuance (just look at who we have for a President!). Foreign films frequently seem to dwell too long to make a point, and sometimes the 'point' seems to be a bit trivial or irrelevant anyway.

Such are my complaints with the winner of the Foreign Language Feature Film Oscar for last year, A Fantastic Woman. This is a long movie and contains many items of questionable value. A terrific example is one of the central 'puzzles' of the movie which involves a key, tagged with the number 181. This particular key occupies significant precious moments in this movie, however the ultimate meaning of it is entirely empty. One might say that is indeed the point, but how many times does that point have to be made? (I'm reminded of an exchange between my wife-to-be and the reverend who married us when, after I proposed that we drink wine out of a two-spouted vessel to suggest our union, she remarked "how many times do you have to symbolize that?" )

Mostly, the characters in this movie are devoid of compassion and totally unlikeable. The story line is linear with a few minor twists, but nothing particularly surprising. And the cinematography, editing, and production values are essentially unremarkable. So, as a movie, A Fantastic Woman fails to deliver.

Nonetheless, I liked it. Not because of any of those characteristics, but because I found the main character, Marina Vidal, mesmerizing. She is played by Daniela Vega, a transgender Chilean who is, by trade, an opera singer. She was brought on the movie team, initially, as a consultant, because she is of the sex and gender characteristics of the main character. After awhile, the director decided that she should actually play the main character. And she did that. She may not be another Meryl Streep, but she brings her own sufficient identity to this character and that was real enough.

I admit up-front that I don't understand 'transgenderism'. I have on some occasions marveled at a male body and wondered about what love might be like with another man, so I can understand, or at least think I can understand, the fundamentals of homosexuality. However, I have never had any questions about my own body (well, it is way too fat right now, but that's not what I mean...). I'm talking about some sense that I don't belong in this body - that being a male is not what I was ordained to be. So, it is difficult for me to relate to the transgender identity. I don't deny that it is real; I don't believe it is wrong, or that it needs to be 'fixed'; but I just don't get how it works. To sum it up simply, after a discussion with my wife on this very movie, my question is why would you want to make love to a body that you feel is so alien that you don't want to be in one like it? Why would a transgender male be interested in a relationship with another man? I can't figure that out.

So the Marina character is intriguing to me - I want to understand what makes her tick and why she is the way she is. A Fantastic Woman doesn't completely answer that question, but it is the best exploration of that identity that I have found yet. The movie shows her confusion and her pain. And while she is still somewhat aloof, we are allowed more insight into the transgender psyche than I have ever been allowed before.

Watching this movie, I really wondered exactly why Russians felt it necessary to make it. Perhaps someone felt it necessary to prove to Westerners that, yes indeed, Russians have sex too. There is a large amount of fairly explicit sex scenes involving the main two couples. Although two of the four are married, they aren't having sex with each other. Maybe that too, was something the Russians were trying to tell us - that even they are as capable of infidelity and decadence as any of us Westerners! I don't know - did I really need to know that.

Ok, yes, the sex scenes involved attractive bodies and their was a certain amount of arousal involved. But the entire movie was, on balance, just plain unsatisfying. The title really captured the essence of the movie - the thing was plainly and fully without love. The characters were physically attractive, but emotionally weak and undeveloped. By the time the movie is over, the viewer doesn't want to have anything to do with them. And, honestly, I question whether it was worth the two hours of my life.

While 'loveless' describes the relationships between the two adults, the main storyline is really about the couple and their child. While the married couple is actively exploring their sexual lives with other people, they seem to completely forget that, at some point, their sex lives actually resulted in something - something they have come to completely neglect. I'm not sure this movie can be further spoiled, but I will refrain from saying what happens to the kid. Let it suffice to say that you won't be happy with how that resolves either.

The director of this movie, Andrew Zvyagintsev, is the same person who brought us Leviathan five years ago. (The lead actor was also the same in both movies.) Leviathan was, however, terrific and explored the interplay between the Russian state and individual lives - I enjoyed that movie immensely. So I am challenged to understand why he is giving us this depressing mess.

There are a couple of scenes of the countryside that are beautifully framed. And the cinematography does a good job of using low lights and shadows to bathe the scenes in a non-emotional context. But aside from perhaps honestly portraying Russian society as depressingly empty, I fail to see why this thing was even nominated.

I don't think I've ever seen a movie that is so directly connected to the sense of touch as this one. With subtle cinematography, the camera exposes us to a large smorgasbord of surfaces - leaves and snow on a forest floor, crumbs on a smooth counter-top, dissipating heat from the hairy limbs of a dying cow, the arousing pleasure of sexual stimulation. Everywhere the movie encourages us to understand how important the sense of touch is to being human.

And how sterile and disconnected life is when touch and feeling are missing. We never quite understand how Maria, the main female character, became the way she is at the beginning of the movie. She is a quality engineer at a slaughterhouse and it is her responsibility to grade the beef products according to how much fat content they might contain. She knows the regulations and also can precisely judge, from visual observation alone, exactly how many millimeters of fat each cow has. She is so robotically qualified to do her job, that her workmates all think of her as part of the machinery.

Except for Endre, who, having a physical disability that also makes him stand out from the rest, develops an attraction to the new woman. The movie is largely the story of how their relationship develops. But this is not exactly a normal relationship. In the first place, the two share a very unique way of communicating which is so critical to the story, that I can't really say much more in this writing. Additionally is that, for reasons unknown, Maria is a true stranger, not just to romance and sex, but actually to human contact of nearly any kind. Although she possesses remarkable mental skills and can remember, precisely, any conversation or date, she is completely immune to the emotional effects of simple things like music. Her emotional development is nearly zero and it is the movie's strength that shows how she struggles to learn the basic elements of being human.

It is remarkable that this story unfolds in the context of a slaughterhouse. Yes, there are some early scenes in the movie which, although avoiding the actual moment of death of an animal, still show visceral scenes of processing an animal from feedlot to butcher shop, including the beheading and draining of blood of the animal. These scenes are certainly not for the squeamish. But they are also an important way to establish the significance of human feeling, by building it on top of a setting where feelings are routinely kept at bay. At one point, Maria is found petting one of the animals which challenges the normal rules of behavior since, in the very near future, she will be attaching a quality grading tag to the animal's skinned carcass. Although the story could have been told in almost any kind of setting, developing it in a slaughterhouse provides a powerful opposite to the main theme of the movie. It is also an interesting backdrop to the beautiful scenes of two deer roaming the forest in search of food, and each other.

At a time when Hungary is in the news because of political backpedaling into a right-wing, cold, and unfeeling cultural environment, it would be interesting to explore how those current politics relate to the themes of this movie. Unfortunately, that essay awaits a more knowledgeable author. But, from this example, it is very clear that the film scene in Hungary is a strong and dynamic one. While I am unaware of any other credits for the actors and director of this film, they have produced a remarkable movie - one that will keep your interest while you explore in your own mind, just what it means to be human. (For those reasons, I give it four stars, maybe even 4.5!).