The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela

What's amazing is how Icelandic filmmaker Olaf de Fleur Johannesson managed to start out making a faux documentary on Filipina transsexual Raquela Rios and then turn it into a poignant narrative with "The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela." In essence, the vibrant Rios, a natural actress, inspired him to let her live out her dream on screen, and the two carry it off fearlessly, for Rios has a star's looks, personality and self-possession. Their film is a rarity in that Rios emerges as a vibrant, reflective woman, an individual who refuses to be defined by her transsexuality.
The actual Raquela, whose birth name is Earvin, dreams of a wealthy, good-looking, straight Westerner whisking her off to Europe or America, taking her to Paris and making her his wife. Johannesson came up with a far-flung plot that works because of the film's -- and its star's -- grit and high spirits. Rios plays a lowly office worker and sometime streetwalker who becomes an Internet porn star. Her gruff but intrigued New York-based employer (Stefan Schaefer) has profited from her sufficiently to take her on to Paris. Raquela Rios is so passionately alive her film gets away with an open ending -- as it has everything else.
Da The Los Angeles Times, 26 settembre 2008