We live in an interesting time for transgender visibility. Laverne Cox’s stint on the Netflix series “Orange is the New Black” has allowed her to catapult into an arena where she can call attention to trans rights and the oppression trans people face, particularly those of color. Jill Soloway’s Amazon series “Transparent” makes the sensitive case for queerness as a spectrum as wide and varied as emotions themselves. Sean Baker’s Sundance hit Tangerine is a film as much about broken hearts and dreams as it is about race, sex workers, class, and life in Los Angeles. And while many trans roles continue to be played by cisgendered actors, the tide seems to be changing.
Within this context, the new documentary Mala Mala stands out. In examining the lives of transgender sex workers and other queers in Puerto Rico, Antonio Santini’s and Dan Sickles’ film challenges conventional ideas of womanhood and femininity in bracingly forthright ways.
One of those ways is in the realm of the visual. It is almost unsettling how gorgeous Mala Mala looks; cinematographer Adam Uhl shoots it as lovingly as any art film, reminiscent of the work of Pedro Almodóvar and Wong Kar-Wai (or even, in its luscious slow motion, Netflix’s documentary series “Chef’s Table”). Here, we see trans women lounge over cars, indulge in cascading waterfalls, and generally shine in a Hollywood-like glamour comparable to the way any person assigned female at birth would be. Such extravagant visual beauty, however, is a double-edged sword here, calling into question to what degree this is a kind of objectification; because of the transgender dynamic, that issue becomes even more complicated than usual. On the one hand, to be accepted as society’s idea of what a woman is is, presumably, validating; on the other, it invites us all to partake in the insidious misogyny that proliferates within the patriarchal society as a whole. Interestingly, there is an air of autonomy to some degree within these images, the suggestion that these subjects are perfectly aware that the camera is gazing upon them. Whether this film crosses a line into objectification or not remains an open question; nevertheless, Mala Mala is infinitely interesting in its consideration of the power dynamics between the viewer and the subject in a less common type of gaze.
Among an ensemble of intriguing individuals, Ivana emerges as its the star: an outspoken Latin woman and trans-rights activist whose cognizance of performance and projection make her the most striking person to watch in Mala Mala. She is, for all intents and purposes, the Laverne Cox of Puerto Rico, unapologetic, outspoken, rather fiery in her own way, and, most of all, powerful.
At one point, she has a conversation with an older trans woman, and their conversation about the differences between gender and sexuality is especially fascinating in the way that the older person has very specific ideas of what makes a woman, transgender or otherwise. She describes a taxonomy of beauty queens and dolls who give up midway through transition, and then suggests that the importance of mind, body, and soul, a holy trinity of sorts that, for her, is a prerequisite for being a woman, not merely aesthetics.
Aesthetics is a particularly intriguing aspect of the women interviewed in Mala Mala: Some are entirely conscious of the performative nature of gender, of the personas crafted and projections realized or as yet unrealized. Others, like Samantha, do not necessarily seem as cognizant of these concepts, but play with those ideas anyway. Samantha describes the body she wants to have and the various cosmetic changes she wishes to make. Compared to some of the other transwomen interviewed, she does not fit as tidily into cisnormative standards of female beauty, as she has traditionally masculine features. There is a palpable melancholy in her voice as she recounts her experience with black-market hormones. The essence she speaks of at the beginning of the film is there, even if it’s not aesthetically realized or recognized by other people; the more we get to know her, the more we find ourselves wanting her to be able to be the woman she wants to be, on her terms.
Body and gender dysmorphia is sensitively handled in Mala Mala: Santini and Sickles are admirably empathetic to their subjects, including Paxx, a transman who has, up to now, been unable to transition. Both his and Samantha’s stories have an undercurrent of despair to them. Thankfully, though, the filmmakers don’t feel the need to stylistically overplay their hand with maudlin music on the soundtrack; they trust the subjects enough to let their words be the music, to let their words move the audience.
Mala Mala works, in a way, as a kind of successor to Jennie Livingston’s iconic 1990 documentary about New York ball culture Paris is Burning. It’s not as strong as that film’s ability to deconstruct ideas of gender, race, class, subcultural hierarchies, performance and marginalization, but it holds its own, ending on a rather positive note. And as far as its preoccupation with aesthetics goes, ultimately the film seems to be saying that it is only human to be wanted, desired and loved. It’s a simple conclusion, but one that has been extraordinarily difficult to achieve. Hopefully that’ll soon change.
