Three Docs to Watch at SXSW: ‘Selena y Los Dinos’, ‘Trans Memoria’, and ‘Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore’

Selena y Los Dinos

“There was [T]he Jackson [5]. We were going to be the Mexican Jackson’s.” -A.B. Quintanilla

The first five minutes of Selena y Los Dinos may leave you in tears. By only seeing her infectious smile and stunning stage presence, you are instantly reminded that Tejano singer Selena was destined for greatness. Some lights were not made to be extinguished. The success that an artist like Bad Bunny has now is the success Selena could have had thirty years ago. You see it on screen, but you feel it in your soul. And it will absolutely destroy you. 

That was the power of Selena, but that is not all that Selena y Los Dinos is. Award-winning documentarian Isabel Castro shows great touch in balancing the star and the support system that her family created. If Selena was Michael Jordan, then her father was Phil Jackson, and her older brother was Scottie Pippen. The group was originally formed by Abraham Quintanilla, the family patriarch, with his eldest son A.B. Quintanilla on bass, Suzette on drums, and Selena as singer in the late ’70s. From there, the band expanded, with A.B. taking on songwriting and production duties. 

Selena y Los Dinos is fueled by private home videos and television appearances by the group in clubs, arenas, and festival performances all since 1980. Current-day interviews with the family, collaborators, and producers take us on a journey from Abraham’s stint as a singer in the original Los Dinos band in the 50s to 1995, when Selena was gearing up for her first full English language album. It is a story of a family watching their brightest at the doorstep of something new and massive, a chance at mainstream success in the US. Which, at the time, had not yet been done by a Tejano singer. The most heartwarming piece of this story is that there is very little family drama. Unlike the Jacksons, there is no abusive father lingering in the shadows or an eccentric, weird character at the center of it all. The Quintanillas were a hard-working, loving family and brought everyone along. Even as Selena began to emerge individually, she was always a part of the collective. 

The drawback to being in and of the group too much is that there is very little room for yourself. We do get a sense of how insular her family was. At no real fault of the filmmaker or the family, because the home videos and television interviews are mostly surrounded by the family, there is very little that we see of Selena outside of that bubble. Before her tragic murder, she was going to get that chance, but we see that she is still apprehensive about being on her own. However, the audience views Selena through the loving lens of her family, by extension we leave the film loving her and mourning her just as her family. 

Trans Memoria

Is it possible to find hope in darkness? That’s the question that Trans Memoria is desperately seeking an answer for. After the death of her friend, artist Victoria Verseau searches for meaning through musings and questioning the meaning of it all. Why the struggle? Why the loneliness? Is it possible to make it? 

“Friend” may be too small of a word to describe the people who care for us, check in, or are just there. Godsend, blessing, or miracle may be heavenly enough. That was Verseau’s experience after she underwent gender confirming surgery. In a tell-all of the painful nature of surgery and recovery, the audience sees things they may have never seen before. In the fight for identity and autonomy, we rarely consider the cost of it. With it, there needs to be a support system of family, friends, or friends that are family. Verseau had that in her friend, but that was lost when she took her own life.

As filmmaker and subject, Victoria Verseau holds a mirror to herself. Her journey for discovery is far from perfect, nor is she out to make her experience as singular. Through her, get a glimpse at the trans experience through a realistic lens that is not always pretty. Though Verseau finds hopefulness in pain, the audience is left to wrestle with the possibility of that quagmire being true. When telling the story about a culture, some may feel that highlighting the positives of said culture should be the focus. However, that is not everyone’s experience. Pain and heartache are experiences that are unavoidable. Verseau sees that but uses the hurt to move beyond. 

The documentary is not as linear as most; we are on a journey of musings and questioning the meaning of it all. Trans Memoria tackles the weightiest questions humans can ask themselves with frank conversations about suicide and suicidal ideation. There are moments in which the audience sits in the dark (literally) and is left to wonder, is there hope in death?

Verseau does not claim to know the answer, but the art itself is hope. Trans Memoria stands as a testament to those lost and to those that choose to go on another day. 

Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore

Marlee Matlin’s fame took off like a rocket after her winning Best Actress at the 59th Academy Awards for her performance as Sarah Norman in the adapted play Children of a Lesser God. The nomination and win were rare. In the last 50 years only four actresses have been nominated for Best Actress in their debut role (Keisha Castle-Hughes in Whale Rider, Catalina Sandino Moreno in Maria Full of Grace, and Quvenzhané Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild), but Matlin was the only actress to walk away with the golden statue. Even rarer, she was the first deaf actor to win an Academy Award. However, what happens when you think the lightning bottle moment is going to start a great blaze, but it is just a flash? When the doors of opportunity open for a higher purpose and not for glitz and glamor? Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore is a story about her life and something much grander.

When Marlee Matlin was approached about making the film, she specifically requested a deaf woman director to craft the project and recommended first time filmmaker Shoshannah Stern for the task. And because the film’s subject is deaf, another special twist they wanted to add was to allow participants to fully use sign language with closed captions. As we learn throughout the documentary, Matlin was a part of the movement that championed the improvement and universal use of closed captions on television and won. The most important pieces of Not Alone Anymore speak to Matlin’s activism, a role that she was thrusted into as a result of her Oscar win. Oralism (the somewhat ableist practice of teaching deaf people to communicate via speech and lipreading as opposed to sign language) and language deprivation (being in an environment where the subject cannot effectively communicate with most other people) are concepts that most hearing people may not even be aware of, but the doc does a great job in illustrating the limitations the world places on deaf and hearing impaired people. 

Though Children of a Lesser God is a watershed moment for Matlin and deaf performers, the character of Sarah Norman is a bit of a paradox. For deaf actors, it has been deemed as an important role, but it is still limiting. If you are a deaf actress, Sarah Norman is a role that you assuredly played, which illustrates how limited deaf characters there actually are. Not Alone Anymore works to recontextualize Sarah and show the fallacy of her legacy. As the documentary title suggests, there are bigger parts for deaf actors that are still untapped.  

Beyond the activism, Not Alone Anymore dives into Matlin’s personal battles, including her tumultuous relationship with William Hurt and her battle with addiction. About 10 years before the #MeToo Movement was born, in her published memoir I’ll Scream Later, she details the physical, mental, and sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of Hurt. In a lesser film, those details could feel incendiary, but the incidents are handled with grace and evenness. 
Marlee Matlin comes across not as sanctimonious nor a helpless victim, but a person that used their platform to do the right thing. When you are a minority, you live in a world that was designed by people without your lived experience. Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore works to dismantle exclusivity and shows that everyone is capable.