ABOVE: “Things We Dare Not Do.” Photo courtesy PBS.
In today’s explosion of the documentary market, where every week brings a new assortment of intriguing entries so abundant it’s impossible to fit them all into your viewing schedule, there are more films about the lives and culture of LGBTQ+ people than ever before.
This is clearly a good thing. But while so many of them are centered on our history and our heroes – on the big, the important, the culturally impactful, and the world-changing – it’s worth taking note when one comes along that brings a more microscopic focus to queer experience and reminds us that our community is made up of millions of individual beings – each of them with their own, unique story to tell.
One such film, seemingly so small and unassuming as to slip under the radar in a field of more titanic choices, is “Cosas Que No Hacemos (Things We Dare Not Do)”, which made its broadcast premiere on PBS’s “American Documentary/POV” Oct. 25 and is available to stream for free through Nov. 24.
The second feature film from Mexican director and cinematographer Bruno Santamaría, this brief (barely 75 minutes) but luminous slice-of-life chronicle might be small, but it has already proven its might. Nominated for two Ariel Awards by Mexico’s Academy of Cinematographic Arts, it is also the winner of the Gold Hugo Award for Best Documentary and the Gold Q-Hugo Award for Best LGBTQ+ Film at the Chicago International Film Festival, and was chosen as an official selection at numerous others, including both the prestigious Hot Docs and DOC NYC film festivals. Touted as giving voice to “a powerful coming-of-age story,” its quietly hypnotic storytelling quickly draws you into such an intimate perspective on one queer person’s journey that it’s easy to see why it has earned such accolades.
“Things We Dare Not Do” takes us to a small Mexican coastal village called El Roblito, where 16-year-old Ñoño lives what seems to be an idyllic existence with his loving family. He spends his days playing with the free-spirited younger children of the town and staging elaborate community dance productions, but there is something inside of him, a secret he’s been holding, that can no longer be denied. Defying gender norms, Ñoño bravely works up the courage to tell his family they wants to live their life as a woman – a decision that comes with potentially dangerous consequences in a country shrouded in machismo and transphobia.
The coming out of a young trans person is clearly a timely and important subject to be documented on film, but under Santamaría’s lyrical guidance that process is part of a bigger experience. Ñoño is part of a community, from which their life is inextricable, a single thread woven into the tapestry of a larger world. While they remain in the center of the film – often wordlessly, a presence made impactful to us by our knowledge of his still-undisclosed inner life – they are seen in the context of day-to-day life in El Roblito. It’s a place where family is central, where generational traditions are honored and perpetuated within the daily routine of the community, and where the rhythms and patterns of existence that have repeated for centuries and longer exert their pressure on every aspect of individual development.
It’s captured beautifully, with exquisite cinematography by the director himself that juxtaposes the serene beauty of rural Mexico against the strength, bravery and spirit of a young queer person working to reconcile his inner life with his identity in the community, and through the course of the film, right alongside their family and the rest of the village, Ñoño is both participant and witness for many important community events. Some of these are joyful, such as the film’s magical opening, featuring a visit from Santa Claus – borne over the town in an aerial vehicle held aloft by a giant rainbow parachute – who distributes candy to the delighted children below.
Some are mundane, like a community movie night and the sound of informational civic announcements being broadcast via loudspeaker in the background, and some celebratory, such as a festive graduation party for the school children of the village. There are more ominous communal touchstones, too; a violent shooting which takes place at that very celebration has a palpable effect on the imaginations of the children for days afterward.
With this slow-paced but bustling environment as a backdrop, Ñoño’s journey unfolds furtively, in powerful yet breathlessly simple private moments shared only with Santamaría’s camera: a secretive trip to the beach to don drag for a few hastily snapped selfies, the late-night ritual of scrolling through a gender-bent social media feed at bedtime with the dim glow of his phone’s touchscreen providing the only light in the darkness of their life, their anxious but resolute on-camera declaration of their intention to come out as trans to their parents.
These are small, quiet, undramatic events, but their cumulative effect pays off a hundredfold in the climactic sequence, where Ñoño finally works up the courage to ask for permission from their family – especially from his traditional, macho, hard-working, and often absent father – to begin living as a woman. There’s no shouting, no confrontations, no dramatic outbursts, but the intensity of emotion that comes in that scene is electrifying, nonetheless.
That it all comes together so unforgettably with what appears to be so little effort reflects the director’s own journey in making the film. Santamaría says of the process:
“It’s very moving to think that we are about to share the work that we started six years ago, to share the encounter we experienced. What began as a secret in my life led us to an idea, that idea led us to a journey, and the journey to an encounter. When I met Dayanara [the name by which Ñoño goes now] everything changed, the idea, the trip, the film and our lives. ‘Things We Dare Not Do’ is the result of this journey of dreams, accidents and experiences; a film that seeks to share the feeling of the coming-of-age experience of an adolescent who takes a brave step in her process of emancipation, in her process of growing up.”
In a time when trans rights – especially for young people – face persistent and venomous assault from phobic far right political factions who aim to negate the truth of trans experience, it’s invaluable to create space in which the truth of those experiences can be explored with nuance, authenticity, and empathy. By taking one young person’s struggle for queer identity out of the usual urban setting we’ve come to expect, Bruno Santamaría’s quietly monumental documentary provides a much-appreciated fresh perspective on the issue; more than that, it delivers a moving tale of emancipation that is sure to stick with you – and inspire you – long after the credits roll.
