The body is transcended in more ways than one in João Pedro Rodrigues' stunning To Die Like A Man, perhaps the loveliest and saddest Fados-haunted, cross-dressing drama to ever come out of Portugal. The story involves Tonia (Fernando Santos), a drag-show diva living in Lisbon with her reckless addict boyfriend Rosario (Alexander David) and attempting to hold onto the limelight as her protégé, Jenny (Jenni La Rue), begins to eclipse her worn-out talents. Despite the heated exchanges, backstage infighting is the least of Tonia's problems: Her silicone implants have begun leaking into her bloodstream, causing a devastating infection that may prove fatal. When puss and blood begin to seep out of her nipple, however, Tonia refuses to accept her body's rejection of her chosen gender; she even begins mulling over the full sex-change operation Rosario has bullied her about for months.
Why is she so hesitant to leave behind her last aesthetic trace of manhood? At least part of the problem lies in her devout Catholicism, not to mention the fact that she fathered a son, Ze Maria (Chandra Malatitch), some two decades back and who himself is a repressed homosexual capable of shooting his fellow soldier and lover out of fear and righteousness. Tonia knows nothing of this when Ze Maria shows up in her home unannounced but part of her wishes to still play the role of the loving father, a situation which causes Ze Maria to flee immediately. Frustrated by these occurrences, Rosario and Tonia retreat to the woods with Tonia's beloved dog Agustine and encounter an enigmatic hideaway ruled by a Celan-quoting vamp by the name of Maria Bakker (Gonçalo Ferreira De Almeida) and her faithful servant.
Digressions are Rodrigues' stock-and-trade but the internal (eternal?) conflict between man, woman and God rages within Tonia throughout Rodrigues' film. As Bakker opines at one point, Tonia need only convince herself now of her womanhood but Tonia's real fear is the criticism of God. Drag, as Rodrigues shows it, is a state of transcendental balance for Tonia but to become a woman would be an affront to her faith. Rosario, who viciously and violently mistreats his lover at every turn, has already all but condemned himself (he attempts to hang himself, at one point) but Tonia refuses to give into the fatalism that has cornered her by the film's profoundly moving finale.
Despite the plaintively adult subject matter, there are times where To Die Like A Man resembles something of a hallucinatory musical fable. Though we never see her perform on stage, Tonia at one point sings a melancholic ballad and Rodrigues expresses her bold emotional release through a series of color filters that eventually burn white with intensity. Later, wandering in the woods with Bakker, her servant and another doctor, the band of outsiders take a pause to listen to the angels brandish their own fado. As much as it plays like cinema magic, it is also an acute expression of the inherent seduction of show business, which Tonia is as tragic an addict of as Rosario is of the needle.
It seems inescapable to approach To Die Like A Man without considering the influence of R.W. Fassbinder's In a Year of 13 Moons, one of the countless number of high peaks in the German master's career. The influence is certainly there but to compare the two films in equal measure would be a misguided tactic as they ultimately summon their respective emotional heft from different sources, not to mention the fact that we've had decades to consider and reexamine 13 Moons and only two years, since its premiere at Cannes in 2009, to contemplate Rodrigues' film. To Die Like A Man is a far more humane and tender examination of the conflicting images and emotions that lie within its protagonist's bruised heart and distorted subconscious, whereas 13 Moons was notable for Fassbinder's patented detachment and cinematic rigor. Rodrigues, who also co-wrote the film with Rui Catalão and João Rui Guerra da Mata, proves his own unique and potent cinematic identity as just as riveting here and this is a bold step forward from his last film, the excellent Two Drifters. What he seeks is nothing short of the truth within the conflicting identities of a largely ignored and condescended-to group of people, what Tonia loathsomely refers to as "the beast I am searching for" while strolling through a graveyard.
AKA Morrer Como Um Homem
Why is she so hesitant to leave behind her last aesthetic trace of manhood? At least part of the problem lies in her devout Catholicism, not to mention the fact that she fathered a son, Ze Maria (Chandra Malatitch), some two decades back and who himself is a repressed homosexual capable of shooting his fellow soldier and lover out of fear and righteousness. Tonia knows nothing of this when Ze Maria shows up in her home unannounced but part of her wishes to still play the role of the loving father, a situation which causes Ze Maria to flee immediately. Frustrated by these occurrences, Rosario and Tonia retreat to the woods with Tonia's beloved dog Agustine and encounter an enigmatic hideaway ruled by a Celan-quoting vamp by the name of Maria Bakker (Gonçalo Ferreira De Almeida) and her faithful servant.
Digressions are Rodrigues' stock-and-trade but the internal (eternal?) conflict between man, woman and God rages within Tonia throughout Rodrigues' film. As Bakker opines at one point, Tonia need only convince herself now of her womanhood but Tonia's real fear is the criticism of God. Drag, as Rodrigues shows it, is a state of transcendental balance for Tonia but to become a woman would be an affront to her faith. Rosario, who viciously and violently mistreats his lover at every turn, has already all but condemned himself (he attempts to hang himself, at one point) but Tonia refuses to give into the fatalism that has cornered her by the film's profoundly moving finale.
Despite the plaintively adult subject matter, there are times where To Die Like A Man resembles something of a hallucinatory musical fable. Though we never see her perform on stage, Tonia at one point sings a melancholic ballad and Rodrigues expresses her bold emotional release through a series of color filters that eventually burn white with intensity. Later, wandering in the woods with Bakker, her servant and another doctor, the band of outsiders take a pause to listen to the angels brandish their own fado. As much as it plays like cinema magic, it is also an acute expression of the inherent seduction of show business, which Tonia is as tragic an addict of as Rosario is of the needle.
It seems inescapable to approach To Die Like A Man without considering the influence of R.W. Fassbinder's In a Year of 13 Moons, one of the countless number of high peaks in the German master's career. The influence is certainly there but to compare the two films in equal measure would be a misguided tactic as they ultimately summon their respective emotional heft from different sources, not to mention the fact that we've had decades to consider and reexamine 13 Moons and only two years, since its premiere at Cannes in 2009, to contemplate Rodrigues' film. To Die Like A Man is a far more humane and tender examination of the conflicting images and emotions that lie within its protagonist's bruised heart and distorted subconscious, whereas 13 Moons was notable for Fassbinder's patented detachment and cinematic rigor. Rodrigues, who also co-wrote the film with Rui Catalão and João Rui Guerra da Mata, proves his own unique and potent cinematic identity as just as riveting here and this is a bold step forward from his last film, the excellent Two Drifters. What he seeks is nothing short of the truth within the conflicting identities of a largely ignored and condescended-to group of people, what Tonia loathsomely refers to as "the beast I am searching for" while strolling through a graveyard.
AKA Morrer Como Um Homem
