Framing Agnes                  2 suns

Framing Agnes has to be one of the more unusual films I have seen at Sundance. It concerns a study of transgender individuals that was conducted at UCLA in the 1960’s by a Harold Garfinkel. Agnes, a transgender woman is one of the main subjects of the film. All that exists from the study are the transcripts of the interviews that Garfinkel conducted with his subjects, both female and male. Therefore, the filmmakers conduct reenactments of the interviews using transgender actors playing the parts of the participants. You can’t really call this a documentary, but it is more a reimagining of trans history. Some of the participants in the study are said to be less than honest as they use their chance to speak as a way to portray themselves how they want to be seen. The film is both informative and funny, but I have to say not something I can begin to really understand.