Film ReviewsMala Mala : 2014 AIFF PREVIEW: Transforming Selves, Transforming Communities
Dec 4, 2014, Anchorage Press
|
|
The feature-length documentary, Mala Mala opens with a wide shot of a tropical landscape that rolls out before viewers as a lush green carpet below a wide, bird-filled sky. Directors Antonio Santini and Dan Sickles have an eye for details and they use vibrant colors, and sounds to create a deeply textured film that serves as the stage for Puerto Rican transgendered people, gays and drag queens, to tell their own stories as they struggle for equality. There is something very particular about the aesthetics of the Tropics, it's a je ne sais quoi that is visually articulated by the atmosphere of heat, humidity and sea air. The sensuality of the island is palpable and sometimes incongruous with the superimposed conservative institutions of church and state.
Puerto Rico, a US Territory, is an integral part of a system of Caribbean islands that also includes Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic and a numbers of smaller islands. Puerto Rico's history is rich and complex, and the identity of its people is no different. In the LGBTQIA community the "T" is for transgendered, but perhaps it should really be for "transformative" because it is the transgender folks who face the ultimate challenge, not just of being who they are, but transforming into who they are. This transformation is painful and difficult on every level, physically, emotionally and socially. Even within the LGBTQIA community, transgendered people struggle to be understood and accepted. Mala Mala weaves the stories of nine transgendered men and women as they undergo physical and emotional transformation. In this process they become more visible, which is both liberating and potentially dangerous; the film does not address violence against transgendered people that made news a few years ago in Puerto Rico and continues in one form or another at worldwide level.
Mala Mala illuminates some of the dynamics in the multifaceted LGBT culture, too many to tackle in one documentary. The film focuses mostly on transgendered women, and only one transgendered man. In an interview with the Huffington Post, the directors said that in two and a half years of shooting, they only found one transgendered man on the island. This is unfortunate because the challenges and issues that transgendered men and women face are very distinct from one another but equally important. The film explores the impacts of media, class, and economics on the choices, or lack of choices, that transgendered people have to make in order to survive.Mala Mala reminds viewers that human beings are not absolute or stagnant from birth to death, their lives are fluid-just as sexuality is, just as gender is.
Mala Mala plays on the big screen with style. Like other important films before it, such as Paris is Burning and Torch Song Trilogy, Mala Mala does not shy away from the raw reality of sexuality, objectification and an individuation-and it delivers all this with dignity worthy of a queen.
Mala Mala shows on Monday, Dec. 8 at 8 p.m. at Bear Tooth, and on Weds. Dec. 10 at 7:30 p.m. at Alaska Experience Theater.
Puerto Rico, a US Territory, is an integral part of a system of Caribbean islands that also includes Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic and a numbers of smaller islands. Puerto Rico's history is rich and complex, and the identity of its people is no different. In the LGBTQIA community the "T" is for transgendered, but perhaps it should really be for "transformative" because it is the transgender folks who face the ultimate challenge, not just of being who they are, but transforming into who they are. This transformation is painful and difficult on every level, physically, emotionally and socially. Even within the LGBTQIA community, transgendered people struggle to be understood and accepted. Mala Mala weaves the stories of nine transgendered men and women as they undergo physical and emotional transformation. In this process they become more visible, which is both liberating and potentially dangerous; the film does not address violence against transgendered people that made news a few years ago in Puerto Rico and continues in one form or another at worldwide level.
Mala Mala illuminates some of the dynamics in the multifaceted LGBT culture, too many to tackle in one documentary. The film focuses mostly on transgendered women, and only one transgendered man. In an interview with the Huffington Post, the directors said that in two and a half years of shooting, they only found one transgendered man on the island. This is unfortunate because the challenges and issues that transgendered men and women face are very distinct from one another but equally important. The film explores the impacts of media, class, and economics on the choices, or lack of choices, that transgendered people have to make in order to survive.Mala Mala reminds viewers that human beings are not absolute or stagnant from birth to death, their lives are fluid-just as sexuality is, just as gender is.
Mala Mala plays on the big screen with style. Like other important films before it, such as Paris is Burning and Torch Song Trilogy, Mala Mala does not shy away from the raw reality of sexuality, objectification and an individuation-and it delivers all this with dignity worthy of a queen.
Mala Mala shows on Monday, Dec. 8 at 8 p.m. at Bear Tooth, and on Weds. Dec. 10 at 7:30 p.m. at Alaska Experience Theater.