Madalena

"The first scene of the Brazilian feature film 'Madalena' begins as if it were a documentary. Wide and long shots showing emus in a field in the Brazilian countryside. Everything is very mundane, very natural. Until the editing gives a cut and shows us, with the same naturalness, a body stretched out in the bush. It's Madalena, a transgender woman dead and invisible in the daily life of people in that small town. From there, we follow three stories: an acquaintance who has a debt to Madalena; a desperate man so that no one sees Madalena's body; and finally, a group of friends needing to get rid of the belongings of the title character. Despite adding some layers to Madalena's condition of invisibility by not giving voice to her character, the feature film surprises with a cold and original portrait of the invisibility of transgender people in Brazil, in a scenario aggravated even further by violence against the bodies and lives of these people. Reflective and with several good ideas, 'Madalena' is one of the great surprises of Brazilian cinema in 2021."