Una Mujer Fantastica
Trigger warning: this article mentions transphobia, homophobia, assault, abuse, sexual harassment and violence; absolutely do not watch this movie if these things could be triggering for you
Wow, this movie. I watched a lot of difficult films this month, films with horrible racism and rampant misogyny, films with sexual assault and abuse. I watched films that had homophobia and transphobia and horrible slurs. But this movie hurt to watch. This beautiful, lovely, wonderful woman is put through absolute hell simply because she is trans. No person should ever have to go through the horrible things she experiences in this movie. And the hardest thing about it is that these sorts of hate crimes and casual moments of transphobia happen on a day to day basis all around the world.
Marina is a young singer who also works in a cafe and is in a loving and beautiful relationship with a man more than twice her age. When he has an aneurysm in the middle of the night and dies, his family and the doctors all start to be very suspicious of Marina, pretty much solely because she’s trans and they never liked that their father/ex-husband/brother etc. was with her in the first place. Obviously, Marina is trying to process the death of the man she loved and thought she would have several happy years with, but simultaneously she is being bombarded on all sides with accusations of manipulative and even criminal behaviour, as well as enduring both the casual and overt, intentional transphobia from almost everyone she comes into contact with.
To begin with, the doctor doesn’t accept that Marina is her true name, but this is only the first of many micro aggressions throughout the film. And if deadnaming and misgendering were the extent of the transphobia in this film, that would be bad enough. Unfortunately, there are horrible slurs, violence, kidnapping, sexual harassment, assault, theft. The list of horrible treatment Marina suffers through goes on and on, and each new thing hurts more than the last. Her identity is invalidated and maligned at every turn, and you would think it’d tear anyone down to be treated that way.
But that’s just it. I’m sure that’s why this movie is called A Fantastic Woman in every language. Because what a fantastic woman! Not only does she shrug off all of the horrible things that are said and done to her, but she focuses her energy on doing what’s right for herself and making herself happy. She reaches out to the people in her life who she knows will support her, and she rises above the hatred to keep moving forward.
There are a lot of really beautiful cinematographic sequences that demonstrate this journey, and a particular scene that I absolutely adored was one where she is walking on the street and the wind starts to get stronger and stronger. It gets so strong she is struggling to even walk against the flow, but she doesn’t let it blow her away. She leans into the wind, further and further, determined not to budge. And this is such a gorgeous metaphor for this movie as a whole. She is being faced with gale force winds and while she can’t move forward against them, she doesn’t let them push her back either. She stands her ground and she does what is best for herself.
This movie, like I mentioned, was hard to watch, but I’m so glad I watched it. Not only because it shows the incredible story of a woman fighting against all odds, but also because I think it’s important for films like this to exist. Just like Bombshell and The Color Purple and many other films I’ve discussed this month, this film tells the story of real life experience, and this is one we should not be putting up with. If you’re a cis person, I highly recommend you watch this film, as hard as it might be. Being able to learn about even a fraction of the hardships that trans women and other trans people go through on a daily basis is such an important part of how we should be educating ourselves, especially to ensure that we are never the culprits in enacting these horrifying aggressions against trans people. So please, watch this film and examine your own actions and words, and catch a glimpse of something you can never understand the visceral experience of.
Una Mujer Fantastica is available to stream (with ads) in Australia on SBS On Demand, and on channel 4 in the UK. It’s not currently available for streaming in the US, but it is available to rent or buy everywhere on YouTube, Google Play or Amazon Prime.
