THERE is only one word to describe the film The Fabulous Ones (Le Favolose), and that word is “fabulous.” But to stop at the fabulosity of this cinema organic to the lives of a group of transgenders/transsexuals is to not only shortchange how the work has presented separate realities of human beings but also mislead the audience into thinking this is all froth and no fury.
The film opens with ladies looking bored as they bask in the sun. They are Porpora, Nicole, Sofia, Veet and Mizia. The feel is referential: is this from a film in the 1970s, the color looking like it is Eastman rather than Technicolor? But this is not the beginning of this tale. A letter is the one that pushes this story to be told. Part confessional and part confrontational, documentary yet discreet, a folklore that is an origin myth for all transgenders, The Fabulous Ones is one splendid and bittersweet journey. It could have been just sweet but the protagonists manage to turn a simple conversation into guilt and recriminations, or into a monologue for each character delivering an oratorical piece about one’s past and present.
Porpora pulls the curtain of the stage for the divas, for they are no less than that, as she goes to their old meeting place. She is there as a de-facto historian of the Italian trans movement and has called all the other members of their quasi-formal organization. The order of the day is to reveal to the group a letter left by one of their members, Antonia. It is a letter that has to be opened after the writer has died. There is one hitch: Antonia passed away some 30 years earlier.
As Porpora brings up the letter in between the rambling dialogues full of memories and madness, we rediscover who these individuals are. Meta at this point, the narrative takes us back into time and attempts not only to explain the struggles they have gone through but also the dresses, the jewelry, the passion and the glory that served as companion pieces to their social histories.
And so we wonder how this letter, a dull proposition compared to the colorful lives of the characters, will turn this film into a piece that will not only memorialize pains and rejections but also commemorate human agency. In this day and age, no one expects a film about gays to follow the trajectory of tragedy. Isn’t it enough that two other characters are already dead: one a template for gay vanity and irascible wit, and the other a model for liberation and transcendence?
What can a corpse (okay, a dead gay diva) bring to a table where a banquet of identities, protective masks and revelations has been prepared?
Allow me to stretch my analysis a bit—after all, in this opera buffa and absurdist drama, the dead come back alive without regrets and devoid of heavenly or hellish pretentions. And, if you care, the living do not seem to care about the afterlife inasmuch as they care about their demand for social equality.
What ails Antonia? Well, apparently, Porpora is really at fault. If only she had opened the letter, their dead compagna in valiant fashion could have been buried properly, following her own wishes. But what happened is the nightmare of any gay male diva who has spent a joyful existence as a person in a woman’s habiliment.
Spoilers alert! The crux of the matter is Antonia’s will that says she be buried in her favorite green dress. But the family does not want any of that because Antonia is first their son and will have to be buried in gentleman’s clothing. Reading the letter now, the group is overwhelmed with sorrow and rage. Will Antonia be happy in the afterlife after being interred—the horror!—as a man? Of course, not. But how do they rectify this existential and metaphysical deadlock?
“Summon the soul of Antonia!” In the seance, another soul/body appears but she is not their friend. It takes another round before Antonia comes forth, but as a masculine apparition. Remember, she was buried costumed as a man. They are shocked, but only for a moment. There can be no end to creativity and women’s agency. They must fulfill the wishes of Antonia that, in the process, will also fulfill their own wishes. Like couturiers out to dress in eternal seasons their old friend, the male shirt and pants are banished like mortal sins, as the law of physics and reality is suspended. Magic and activism take over to deliver a very important message: in death, gay bodily IDs can be erased but life can bring back the allure of the true self for any transsexual/transgender worth her happiness.
Indeed, how many epitaphs and names out there in lonely memorial parks have been assigned gender not approved by those buried under them? How many “Johns” and “Peters” are carved in marble when the deceased would have wished for names with the insouciance of Violetta and the bravura of Renata?
Roberta Torre is the director behind this cinema of identity-assertion, the mind rallying for the right of any human being to be what he or she is in death or in life. And, better, in the afterlife. She is also credited for the screenplay with Cristian Ceresoli and Nico Morabito. The film’s genre is notably dubbed docu-fiction.
The Fabulous Ones was produced by Stemal Entertainment and Faber Produzioni with Rai Cinema, in collaboration with Mit-Movimento Identità Trans. The film was shown in this year’s 35th Tokyo International Film Festival. I wish to thank the Secretariat of TIFF for allowing me online access to the films.