In praise of Isabel Sandoval

Isabel San­doval is not only one of the great­est film­mak­ers work­ing today, but one of the most for­mi­da­ble human beings. She is extreme­ly ver­sa­tile, empa­thet­ic, and capa­ble of nav­i­gat­ing any genre she turns her hand to.

Her most recent act­ing turn is Andrew Ondrejcak’s The Actress, released on MUBI, in which she deft­ly moves between pas­tich­es of Dou­glas Sirk, Josef von Stern­berg, David Lynch, Stan­ley Kubrick, Roger Vadim, and Ter­ence Mal­ick, all with­out scarce­ly bat­ting her daz­zling eye­lash­es. Capa­ble of chan­nelling Mar­lene Diet­rich as eas­i­ly as Jane Fon­da, San­doval isn’t bound by time and space.

The Actress feels like a film ver­sion of the new book by LWLies edi­tor David Jenk­ins, ​‘Film­mak­ers on Film’. At the heart of its pages on 50 of the great­est direc­tors of all time is an inter­view with San­doval, in which David asks her about ​“sen­su­al cin­e­ma” – a filmic style she has become known for celebrating.

She describes it as a feel­ing you get when watch­ing a film like Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love or Dou­glas Sirk’s All That Heav­en Allows, where the direc­tor has man­aged to ​“project or trans­late the desire that they feel into some­thing vis­i­ble that can be expe­ri­enced by spec­ta­tors.” That form of sub­jec­tiv­i­ty is an inti­mate sen­sa­tion, and one that will be dif­fer­ent for everyone.

Sandoval’s first fea­ture, Señori­ta, is styled as an invi­ta­tion for her audi­ence to desire with her and the char­ac­ters she cre­ates, both in this film and her sub­se­quent works. Jenk­ins is host­ing a screen­ing of the film to cel­e­brate the launch of his book at the Prince Charles Cin­e­ma in Lon­don on Wednes­day 13 July, with San­doval attend­ing in per­son for a con­ver­sa­tion after­wards. It’s a rare oppor­tu­ni­ty to expe­ri­ence this film in the UK, and to hear from an extra­or­di­nar­i­ly empa­thet­ic and artic­u­late artist.

I was for­tu­nate enough to see Lin­gua Fran­ca fol­low­ing its exhi­bi­tion at the BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val, and felt com­pelled to reach out to San­doval to dis­cuss the impact the film had had on me. She was incred­i­bly gra­cious in her response, and from our con­ver­sa­tions it has become clear to me what makes her work so unique – her cinelit­er­a­cy, and her expe­ri­ence as a woman who under­went a process of transition.

The for­mer is writ large in every­thing she makes. The seedy neon-soaked streets and bars of Señori­ta are tak­en straight from the reels of a Kar-wai pic­ture, while the repressed emo­tions and sex­u­al­i­ties of the nuns at the con­vent in her sec­ond fea­ture, Appari­tion, echo the over­whelm­ing inner con­flicts of the women in Pow­ell and Pressburger’s Black Narcissus.

Her lat­est film, the exquis­ite Lin­gua Fran­ca which is still yet to receive a full UK release, makes ele­gant use of New York ​‘pil­low shots’ à la Chan­tal Aker­man via Yasu­jirō Ozu, while also call­ing upon the rich cin­e­mat­ic his­to­ry of ​‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’ by The Plat­ters, which has fea­tured in films by direc­tors includ­ing Andrew Haigh, Rain­er Wern­er Fass­binder, and Hou Hsiao-hsien.

Lis­ten­ing to San­doval talk­ing about these influ­ences is entranc­ing. She is fas­ci­nat­ed by rep­re­sen­ta­tions of repressed desire and long­ing, some­thing she is work­ing into plans for a film about les­bian vam­pires which we dis­cussed on my pod­cast last year in rela­tion to Tony Scott’s The Hunger.

Dur­ing our con­ver­sa­tion, she revealed her poten­tial to be inspired by any­thing; to find sen­su­al­i­ty and the impe­tus for desire every­where. We should all take note and learn from her mode of cre­ation, some­thing which I have been keen to cham­pi­on in the UK, includ­ing through an upcom­ing screen­ing of Lin­gua Franca.

What has also been incred­i­bly pow­er­ful for me is being able to talk to San­doval about our shared expe­ri­ence of tran­si­tion. Feel­ing com­pelled to cel­e­brate the change she is inspir­ing in rep­re­sen­ta­tions of trans* nar­ra­tives, we col­lab­o­rat­ed on a fea­ture for Mas­sive about sex for women who have had Gen­der Con­fir­ma­tion Surgery.

What comes through so refresh­ing­ly from the two fea­tures in which she has act­ed – Señori­ta and Lin­gua Fran­ca – is that she doesn’t feel she owes any­one an expla­na­tion of her tran­si­tion. She expects the same lev­el of empa­thy, of under­stand­ing from her audi­ence as she extends to them.

It’s incred­i­bly mov­ing watch­ing San­doval grow as a direc­tor and as a woman between these two films. It’s upset­ting to see her dead­name onscreen for her first two fea­tures, but San­doval has talked of them as being a part of her per­son­al tran­si­tion. While Lin­gua Fran­ca was, pro­fes­sion­al­ly speak­ing, her ​“tran­si­tion­al film”, it marks not the end but the very begin­ning of what is bound to be a long and pro­lif­ic career in film­mak­ing. These are films which San­doval made while her tran­si­tion was very pre­scient for her, where­as now, as she works on her upcom­ing fea­ture Trop­i­cal Goth­ic, it is in her past.

It seems strange to return to Señori­ta when so much has changed since San­doval made the film. But it is a remark­able sem­i­nal work, one which doc­u­ments an incred­i­bly volatile moment in her per­son­al life and career, and there­by of the begin­nings of an individual’s transition.

Unlike most depic­tions of that process in cin­e­ma, the fact that San­doval and her char­ac­ters in Señori­ta and Lin­gua Fran­ca are tran­si­tion­ing or have tran­si­tioned is mere­ly a com­po­nent of their char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion, rather than its entire­ty. It’s good to reflect as San­doval so often does, but it is more excit­ing to see her mov­ing on.

Señori­ta receives its UK pre­mière at the Prince Charles Cin­e­ma on Wednes­day 13 July. For tick­ets head to the princecharlescin​e​ma​.com

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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