Trailer Tuesday: Welcome to Marwen
(Editor’s note: as announced earlier this week, this is Talicia’s last trailer with us – we hope for a while, but we’re prepared if the vacation is permanent. We’ve absolutely loved having her with us, and she’s headed toward some truly wonderful things on the personal and professional fronts. We could not be happier for her. That said, she’ll be missed. Today sort of feels like the end scene of The Golden Girls, when Dorothy hugs everyone goodbye after she marries her dreamboat. You are the Dorothy to my Blanche, Talicia. You’re always welcome back for cheesecake on the lanai.)
In my previous trailer summary, I described the problem some filmmakers have with telling a true story in a way that erases part of their subject’s identity. So it’s with mixed feelings I write this next trailer summary for Welcome to Marwen.
The original Mark Hogancamp was beaten to death (literally) by thugs because he was a cross-dresser. After he was resuscitated and began the long process of healing, he created dioramas as a way to creatively express himself and cope with his disability. The trailer doesn’t make it clear that cross-dressing is the reason he’s attacked, and the thugs in question have been written as actual Nazis. Undoubtedly, that’s representative of the movie Hogancamp’s dioramas, in which he creates replicas of his friends and his enemies, who happen to be the Nazi villains to his WWII soldier hero. I expect that this representation of badass women friends and Nazi villains is also meant to be timely in light of current events. But I hope that don’t erase the nature of what makes Hogancamp “different.”
Welcome to Marwen comes out December 21, 2018.