AFI Festival: To Die Like A Man

[Shana A]

AFI Festival: To Die Like A Man
Monday, November 9, 2009 9:56AM By Tom von Logue Newth

http://screencrave.com/2009-11-09/afi-festival-to-die-like-a-man/

One of the AFI Fest's exclusive screenings in its final two days' removal to Santa Monica was Portugese João Pedro Rodrigues' acclaimed transvestite drama Morrer Como Um Homem. From the war-paint-as-make-up opening, followed by a terrific sex-change origami demonstration, to the musical afterlife-view finale, Rodrigues glides smoothly and unhurriedly through the story of aging transvestite Tonia (Fernando Santos), scared of the butchery implied in the final transformation, secure in her inner identity but undeceived by the outer, and slowly dying from the very things that help make her what she is (leaking breast implants).