A Fantastic Woman - Sebastián Lelio (2017)

Since the beginning of cinema, there have been countless films about bigotry, prejudice, and hate. Some are political and others more personal and intimate. Sometimes, we see stories of men and women who struggle just for their basic right to love and be loved. And when tragedy hits, everyone mourns and grieve just like anybody else.

Marina Vidal (Daniala Vega), is a young, transgender woman in a relationship with Orlando (Francisco Reyes), a man thirty-years her elder. The two of them are taking a giant step together. She is moving in with him.

At Marina's birthday celebration, with the Chilean nightlife as its backdrop, Orlando and Marina share an intimate dinner, complete with just the right gift. As one would expect, dancing and love-making follow.



Then, for no apparent reason, Orlando suffers some sort of attack. Panicked, Marina helps him into the car as best as she can, though, at one point, he fell down some stairs, in spite of Marina's help.

He dies in the hospital from an aneurysm. Marina is told about an abrasion on Orlando's head he'd sustained when he fell. They connect it and its possible connection with Orlando's death.

Immediately, the police show up to question Marina. The investigator (Amparo Noguera) wants to know what Orlando was paying Marina. The assumption that Marina's a prostitute is already established in her mind.

The so-called investigation would better be referred to as an exercise in cruelty when the investigator decides that Marina's sex is relevant. It leads up to one of the most crushingly humiliating experiences of her life. It's very hard to watch. Of course, Orlando's family were the ones to call the cops in the first place.

That's just the start of Marina's world crashing down on her head. First, she's alone in the world, she's lost her lover. Now, she's a target, a punching bag meant to absorb the grief of other people.

When Orlando's ex-wife Sonja, (Aline Kuppenheim), comes to claim his car, she gives Marina harsh instructions. She is not to come to the wake or the burial. Why? Sonja answers with honesty and sincerity. Sonja believes Marina is a perversion. Sonja's offended at the thought of someone she cares about being with the girl. Marina's very existence seems to offend her. She tells her that she's a perversion.

When Marina shows up at the wake anyway, Sonja stands up and shouts. Marina is shamed in public and reluctantly leaves. Orlando's family, his son, ex-wife, granddaughter, all except his brother persist in mistreating her.

All of this is happening to her while she's still in the throes of grief. She is stunned with mourning and still being told she doesn't have the basic right to grieve.
"A Fantastic Woman" brings up an interesting question. Does a family in mourning have the right to tell somebody who loved him deeply that they will not allow her to say goodbye? The film explores the answers delicately and with care.

Yes, the film is muted and maddening at the same time. Lelio manages to find the intimate and very human side of grief.  It's this year's entry from Chile for Best Foreign Language Film. It's already been celebrated around the world on the Festival Circuit.

Now, "A Fantastic Woman" is getting some recognition in the States because of the Oscar Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. "A Fantastic Woman" is a treasure and is fittingly getting the attention it deserves.

Call Me By Your Name - Luca Guadagnino (2017)

Do you remember the moment you discovered you were a sexual creature? You think of others as more than just handsome or beautiful. You actually want to do things to them. You start to wonder creatively what those things could be.

Luca Guadagnino's "Call Me By Your Name," reaches back to that moment when one's sexuality first rears its head.

Every summer, the Perlman family hosts a guest for the summer. The patriarch, Mr. Perlman (Michael Stuhlbarg), is a professor and it's an opportunity for a kind of mentorship. This summer, that guest is Oliver (Armie Hammer), a twenty-four-year-old student of Mr. Perlman.

At first, Elio (Timothee Chalamet), the Perlmans' seventeen-year-old son, doesn't like Oliver at all. In fact, Oliver is kind of a dick. He's arrogant and dismissive. He refuses any overtures of friendship, but he himself demands constant companionship. He expects others to drop everything to accommodate him. So yeah, Oliver is not just kind of a dick. He's a straight-up bastard.

Elio has to spend almost all of his time entertaining Oliver. He has to go on errands with him. Whenever it suits Oliver, he insists Elio must accompany him all of the time as he goes bike riding or swimming, etc.

Slowly, Elio's feelings turn from annoyance to attraction. Like a little man-crush, and the romance builds from there.

At the same time, Elio is curious about sex in general. He hasn't found his identification yet, so while he's falling for Oliver, his romance with girlfriend Marzia (Esther Garrel) is progressing, getting more serious and more sexual.

But as his attraction to Olivier turns into infatuation, he has to make some kind of choice. To be fair, Marzia deserves that much. She needs to know where her relationship with Elio is going.

The bulk of the film concentrates on the evolving romance between Oliver and Elio. Now, the time he spends with Oliver, running errands, bike riding, swimming etc. have gone from tedious to treasured.

The way the story plays out with this small intimate group of characters, against the backdrop of northern Italy in the summer makes me think of Bernardo Bertolucci's "Stealing Beauty." Just as in "Stealing Beauty," the characters adore each other and that endears them to us. Plus, the love scenes between Oliver and Elio are soft and intimate.

One thing I have learned from art-house, gay-centered films is that all of the love scenes starts with play fighting. I don't believe that's the way it is in life, but I don't think I've ever seen a gay love sequence without that wrestling kind of foreplay.


The tenderness and subtly which with Guadagnino unfolds this romance is beautiful. If you like love stories at all, you'll enjoy "Call Me By Your Name."

Thelma - Joachim Trier (2017)

As young adults or teenagers, when we encounter our first loves, it changes every part of us irrevocably. In some of us, the changes are  subtle. In others, however, the transformation slaps us in the face and recreates us into something we never would have believed.

The girls Joachim Trier presents us with in "Thelma" are quiet to start with, particularly Thelma (Eili Harboe). She's a young college student, starting life out on her own. Sort of. She's still tied to her religious yet demoralizing parents.

Thelma's father (Henrik Rafaelsen) is a grand manipulator. Whenever he tries to teach her a moral lesson, it always ends the same: Thelma lowers her head and starts to weep. These speeches spring up randomly in most of their conversations and they devastate Thelma.

Her mother (Ellen Dorrit Petersen) is a quiet, passive-aggressive woman who doesn't talk very much, but is clearly softly bullying the girl.

Thelma plows through, studying and going to classes. She hasn't really made any friends yet. A girl, Anja (Kaya Wilkins) sits with her one day while she's studying. 

Thelma's attraction to this girl kicks in right away. She falls to the floor having a non-epileptic seizure. She has no history of epilepticy or seizures of any kind. The doctors run tests, but don't find anything, so clearly, something else triggered the seizure. Like seeing her first love for the very first time. Put that together with Thelma realizing in a second that she likes girls it's no wonder why she reacted so strongly.

Thelma and Anja start to get closer as Thelma's desire for Anja rises. At the same time, Thelma's religious upbringing harmfully holds her back. At night, she kneels with her head against the wall and pleads with God to take away these sinful thoughts and urges. When her father finds about her sexual identity, he forces her to kneel with her head against the wall, pleading with God to remove these new, deviant desires. Thelma is profoundly lost.

The bulk of the film is about Thelma's choice. Does she bend to the so-called morality of her upbringing? Or is she going to hunt down the girl she loves dearly so they call start their relationship?

They clearly have a pure love between them. The passion that grows between them reminded me of Abdellatif Kechiche's deeply emotional "Blue is the Warmest Color."

Therein lies the trauma millions of young gay men and women experience. They can't let themselves love because something in their heads insists that who they are is wrong. So much unhappiness comes from love deprivation. Above everything in this world, love is what we need the most. And everyone deserves to have it.

"Thelma" looks at this problem without condemnation, for neither Thelma or her parents. Trier doesn't condescend to mocking her upbringing, her beliefs or her family, even when they're at their worst. That kind of kindness he shows to all of his characters carries this film and raises it up among others that explore this theme.

So yes, you should seek out "Thelma." Not just if you're a sucker for romance but if you love film or storytelling. This film is far too thoughtful to peg it into a genre.

Let  me say it as strongly as possible. "Thelma" is one of the great films of 2017.

In a Heartbeat - Beth David and Esteban Bravo (2017)

Harper, my kid, showed me an animated short that has been getting a lot of attention lately. This is a very romantic, delicate, funny and sweet love story.

What I think I liked the most in the movie was the way David and Bravo refused to sexualize their characters. A lot of lesser filmmakers would have made that mistake. They also refuse to sexualize homosexuality. They treat it as an identity rather than some kind of dirty act. Normalization is crucial to every step we take toward equality.

Anyway, watch below and you'll see what I'm talking about.