Watch these 2017 nominated films: A Fantastic Woman and Faces Places

3/12/18 A Fantastic Woman, Best Foreign Film, 2017
Normally when it takes me a long time to write a review it's because I didn't like the movie, or worse, didn't care about the movie, and can't figure out how to express that. I have to say that is totally NOT the case with A Fantastic Woman, winner of the Best Foreign Film for 2017. I think what happened is I was so burned out from cramming in movies in a condensed period of time, I just couldn't do it. However, I ready now. If you watched the Oscars, you saw the star of A Fantastic Woman, Daniela Vega, as the first transgender presenter for the awards. The film is set in Chile, and Vega is Marina, a singer and waitress, who is the girlfriend of an older man, Orlando (Francisco Reyes). After a night out of celebrating, Orlando doesn't feel well, and Marina takes him to the hospital. Orlando dies, and Marina calls his brother, Gabo, to explain what happened. Gabo is aware of their relationship, and is the most sympathetic of Orlando's family. The movie follows Marina as she deals with the loss of her partner, but not being able to grieve openly because of his family and society's fears and prejudices against transgender people. I found her to be an incredibly likeable and sympathetic character, and I got upset and angry at the way she was treated by the police, who on the one hand tried to accuse her of beating Orlando, but then were condescending towards her, and thought she was forced into the relationship. I wanted to scream at the screen. The battle she has with Orlando's ex-wife (I'm not sure if that was a translation error, or if it's a cultural difference, because she seemed to have a lot of power as an ex-wife) broke my heart. Writer/director Sebastian Lelio could have easily made this into a campy film, playing into negative stereotypes, or more sexualized, but he made Marina (I believe he said in his acceptance speech that Daniela was the inspiration for Marina) a very real and accessible character, ultimately hopeful. I think Vega could have been nominated for Best Actress, she was that good. There were a couple of scenes that reminded me of Pedro Almodovar's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (this is kind of a non-sequitur, but I wanted to mention it). I have been recommending this movie to anyone I think will give it a try; foreign films often scare people away, and the topic of transgenderism can make people uncomfortable, but I hope you give this a try. Here's how great I think it is: I was going to see it a second time, the day after I saw it, with my brother. I rarely watch movies more than once.

3/31/18 Faces Places, nominated Best Documentary, 2017

Faces Places by Agnes Varda and JR is the last of the nominated documentaries for 2017, and the only one I had not seen prior to the Oscars. I don't think it should have won, but it was by far better than the ultimate winner, Icarus. Agnes Varda, a French filmmaker, has been making films since the 1950s (she's a contemporary of Jean-Luc Goddard) and JR is a French photographer and artist who does a lot of his work in the streets. These two artists connected and wanted to do a project celebrating people in the French countryside. They drove around in a big truck that actually produced large format photographs and made huge posters. One of the first installations they did was in a mining town, on a street where everybody was gone, except for one woman, Jeannine, who still lived in her house. JR re-printed some existing, vintage photographs in giant size and pasted them on the buildings. It was quite something to see the response of the village to these representations of the lives of their parents and grandparents. Varda and JR go from farm to village to seaside and meet people and talk to them, and find that little nugget of information or history that makes the encounter special, and the photographs unique. The photos can last a few weeks, days or hours, depending on the weather conditions and the environment. The viewer gets a brief glimpse of different French towns, but also gets to observe the relationship between Varda and JR, which is sometimes teasing, sometimes educational, sometimes a lesson in film and film history, like when they visited the home of Jean-Luc Goddard, to unexpected results. If you watch the movie on DVD, there is an interview with JR and Agnes that talks about how they made the film, how they chose their locations, their friendship, and I found that as interesting as the documentary, and in fact, just ordered Varda's film The Gleaners and I from the library.