![]() ![]() Rita, for her part, challenges his prejudices and as she warms up, the play’s underlying questions of how education, and literature, can liberate us psychically begin to seem more relevant to the place and value of the arts now, in post-lockdown society. Before it does, the tone wobbles and it feels a little too lost in the past, from nostalgic references to Kim Wilde and Robin Day to the unreformed 1980s wardrobe (hot-pink jumpers, pencil skirts, gold belts), and Rita’s bright-eyed hope of transformation, which, in this period context, seems to capture the dream of upward class mobility in Thatcher’s Britain, alongside her purer desire to feed her soul with learning.Īs the comedy calms and the drama sets in, the actors build a chemistry that contains more intellectual tensions to become a better, deeper, play with an almost painful tenderness between them by the end.ĭirected by Max Roberts, the story ekes out Frank’s contempt for academic snobbery but also his own inverted snobberies towards Rita, who he seems first to hail as something of a latter-day noble savage (or “native” in her words). In the way of classic femme films, though, Paloma belongs to Sena, who has created A Fantastic Woman in her own sweet, provincial way.It is more that the comedy doesn’t always land in the early scenes, sometimes feeling over-egged, while the drama takes its time to gather in force. The white of Paloma’s dream wedding contrasts with the occluded life she is permitted to live, where stepping out of the shadows is a confrontational act for Brazil’s uneasy status quo. There’s a tropical feel, but it isn’t fetishised. Gomes shoots his classic portrait of a doomed heroine emphasising light and shadow. Brazil’s broad church of spirituality means her quest isn’t as doomed as it might initially seem, but it becomes increasingly clear that it’s going to cost her in ways she doesn’t anticipate. This is what she sees as sealing her place in the community. Same sex marriages are legal in Brazil, but religious acceptance is as remote a possibility here as it is anywhere else. Trans communities – even straight ones – may justifiably ask why she would even want to take this heteronormative path, and find it unsympathetic, at least at the outset. ![]() Paloma’s goal is not as unreasonable as it initially seems. Casual jibes and threats accompany her wherever she goes, and Sena’s portrayal conveys the sweetness and innocence of her nature and the vulnerability that accompanies it. Yet this shedding of her support network for ‘normality’ is a risky move. As the film pans back into her life, we see her friends (working at a sex parlour) and get the sense that she has left a lot behind to pursue Ze and her dreams of the full package, including a white wedding. Paloma is poor, black, and uneducated she is, in fact, illiterate. With Ze, she co-parents a seven-year-old daughter, does hair part-time and works as a fruit picker in a papaya plantation to help Ze achieve his own dreams – a fairly mundane desire for an expensive motorbike. Sex is a big part of Paloma’s life, but ‘normality’ is what she really craves. We start with her enjoying lustful sex with Ze, her husband and, in a reverse Crying Game, the camera pans back in the shower to show her full body, and naked penis, before anyone can say a word. Gomes doesn’t delve into Paloma’s history: there’s no background for who she is or where she comes from. Brazil’s trans community may seem more accepted or even established than others, but, as is often the case, it’s paper thin, and deaths are commonplace. The seeming inevitability of the narrative is leavened by Sena’s acute construction and portrayal of the character of Paloma. Premiering at the Munich Film Festival, this Carnival Films production (sold through Memento) should clearly travel the LGBTQ circuit and could secure some distribution in niche theatrical play. Gomes’ ( Joaquim) highly empathetic portrait lives and breathes through Kika Sena’s performance. Kika Sena’s portrayal conveys the sweetness and innocence of Paloma’s nature and the vulnerability that accompanies it Paloma’s heedless determination to follow her desires is unlikely to end well, we know, but that’s almost beside the point of Gomes’s film: her courage and overwhelming vulnerability was palpable long before she started down that path. Inspired by a newspaper article, Brazil’s Marcelo Gomes has, together with actor Kika Sena, created a reverie on the dreams of a rural, black trans woman for full acceptance - which, for the titular Paloma (Sena), means a white wedding to her lover Ze (Ridson Reis) in a Catholic church, blessed by a priest. Source: Munich International Film Festivalĭir. ![]()
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