‘Mommy’: Her Not Him

I went into ‘Mommy,’ the magnificent film from out, gay, Québécois prodigy Xavier Dolan (he’s 26 and this feature is the fifth he’s written and directed) knowing that Anne Dorval, who plays the title character, was being touted in some awards circles as a possible nominee for “Best Actress” in 2014 (she’s flawless in this role, certainly better than the other Best Actress nominees I saw)–as opposed to “Best Supporting Actress.” But this film (which won the Jury Prize at Cannes) kept surpassing my expectations by keeping its focus on her and not the one who would be the main character of any other film: her at turns charismatic, obnoxious and violent 15-year-old, blonde son, Steve (an incredible Antoine-Olivier Pilon).

mommy_cover


This slightly modified repost by Ren Jender appears as part of our theme week on Bad Mothers.


The misunderstood, screwed-up manboy/hero is such a persistent trope in films that audiences are often tricked into empathizing with characters whose actions are more deserving of our scorn. At the end of Blue Valentine, when Ryan Gosling’s character separates from his wife, Michelle Williams’ character, and leaves the daughter they’ve raised together, I heard someone nearby say aloud, “Poor guy.” But Gosling had, just a scene before, shown up drunk at Williams’ workplace to terrorize and humiliate her (and ends up assaulting her boss, which results in her losing her job). The director and co-writer, Derek Cianfrance, could barely manage to see these actions from the point of view of Williams’ character: the one with whom our empathy would more naturally lie.

I went into Mommy, the magnificent film from out, gay, Québécois prodigy Xavier Dolan (he’s 26 and this feature is the fifth he’s written and directed) knowing that Anne Dorval, who plays the title character, was being touted in some awards circles as a possible 2014 nominee for “Best Actress”  (she’s flawless in this role, certainly better than the other Best Actress nominees I saw)–as opposed to “Best Supporting Actress.” But this film (which won the Jury Prize at the 2014 Cannes) kept surpassing my expectations by keeping its focus on her and not the one who would be the main character of any other film: her at turns charismatic, obnoxious and violent 15-year-old, blonde son, Steve (an incredible Antoine-Olivier Pilon).

We first meet Dorval’s character, Die (short for Diane), after we see, from a distance, a car crash into hers at a good speed. She staggers out after opening the jammed door, her head bleeding as she curses out the other driver. In the next scene we see her walking in extremely high heels along a hallway filled with several inches of water to meet with the director of the “youth facility” (one small step from a detention facility) where her son has been staying. The resigned bureaucrat behind the desk is more like real-life people who work in social services than the young idealists and abusive villains we usually see in movies. She explains that Steve has set a fire (the reason for the watery hallway) that injured another student, so he’s being expelled into Die’s care. Die objects, but the director tells her she has no choice–unless Die wants to commit him. Die astutely points out that doing so would put him in the pipeline to prison, which she doesn’t want. The director tells her, “We save some, we lose some,” and “Loving people doesn’t save them,” but no one, certainly not Die, can be as philosophical about their own child.

“Skeptics will be proven wrong,” Die retorts. Besides having a sexy wardrobe of high heels, tight jeans, sheer shirts and short skirts (a contrast to how unwilling most films are to acknowledge mothers as sexual beings) we see she also signs her name like a 12-year-old girl–complete with hearts.

MommySon
Mother and son

 

Steve has some psychiatric diagnoses and no impulse control, so even though he has a loving, teasing, quasi-inappropriate relationship with his good-looking, tart-tongued, probably alcoholic mother, their lives together are measured in the moments between his abuse and violence, some directed toward her, some directed to others. In one of the only scenes in the film that fall flat he makes racist remarks to a Black cab driver, the only person of color we see onscreen. Young, aimless white guys have targeted their anger at Black and brown people through the ages, but filmmakers, especially young ones like Dolan, should understand that audiences need to see POC characters as more than anonymous victims–and more than one in a film that is over two hours.

At one point Steve goes to the mall and in a beautifully stylized sequence (the expert cinematography is by André Turpin) we see him shouting and whirling around with a shopping cart. He shows joy and energy along with the intermittent charm we’ve already witnessed. But when he goes home and shows Die the goods he’s brought with him, including a necklace for her that spells out, “Mommy,” she tells him he has to return this stolen merchandise. He then starts shouting and smashing things, chasing Die, and at one point strangling her until she hits him in the head with a glass-covered picture frame and he retreats. As Die cowers in a locked closet, pleading with Steve through the door to take his medication, she hears him talking calmly to someone and when she ventures out she sees the neighbor from across the street (to whom she has never spoken) dressing the leg wound Steve suffered in the confrontation. Kyla (Suzanne Clément, every bit as great as her co-stars) is about Die’s age and the two have similar features but their personalities and circumstances differ. Kyla has a form of aphasia that seems to be the result of a breakdown. She is “on sabbatical” from her job as a high school teacher and, as we have seen in previous scenes she spends a lot of time facing away from the husband and daughter she lives with, observing Steve and Die through her home’s front window.

 

MommyTrio
Mother, son, and friend/tutor

 

The three have a convivial dinner together and while Steve is out of the room, Kyla and Die down shots while Die explains that she can’t ever call the police or alert hospitals after an incident like the one that afternoon because the authorities might then take her son away from her. Die states, “Life with Steve is a roll of the dice,” and, “When he loses it, you best scram because it gets ugly.” When Steve returns he encourages them all to dance and sing along with one of his favorite songs.

Kyla, who feels superfluous in her own household, accepts Die’s request to tutor her son while Die goes to a job interview. We see Steve testing Kyla by acting up with her the way he does everyone else, even touching her breasts, but when he pulls a necklace from around her throat and refuses to give it back, Kyla shows the reserves of rage quiet people often have, pushing Steve flat onto the floor. In a lesser movie this scene would be the prelude to a sexual encounter, but Dolan instead makes us see, as Kyla does, that in spite of his bravado and violence Steve is just a screwed-up kid.

What follows is a chronicle of three misfits who, for a time, find what they need in one another. Kyla is Die’s confidante, the only person who really understands her and the situation with her son. Steve likes having Kyla as his tutor and is on his best behavior (which is by no means perfect) in her presence. And Kyla has fun and feels like she has a purpose when she is with Die and Steve. In a bravura moment, the square frame of the film is seemingly stretched by Steve’s own hands into widescreen as Oasis’s “Wonderwall” plays on the soundtrack.

We see, when Die is interrupted as she prepares dinner with the others, that the idyll can’t last (and the screen shrinks back to a square). The classmate at the facility whom Steve injured with fire is suing. The knock at the front door was to serve a subpoena. Still, Die scrambles to “save” her son and in another widescreen sequence imagines a parallel life for him, graduating from high school, going to college, getting married, becoming a parent–and growing tall.

At one point Steve wonders what will happen when his mother doesn’t love him anymore, but she explains to him that he is much more likely to stop loving her than the other way around. In the end we see that no matter the circumstances their bond will continue. But the two women who had been such close friends (friendship between two 40-something women is an unusual enough focus for a film that one would think it rarely occurs offscreen) can hardly face each other anymore. The other’s presence reminds each of what she would most like to forget.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7rtSqI0ZeA” iv_load_policy=”3″]

___________________________________________________

Ren Jender is a queer writer-performer/producer putting a film together. Her writing, besides appearing every week on Bitch Flicks, has also been published in The Toast, RH Reality Check, xoJane and the Feminist Wire. You can follow her on Twitter @renjender

‘Mommy’: Her Not Him

I went into ‘Mommy,’ the magnificent, new film from out gay, Québécois prodigy Xavier Dolan (he’s 25 and this film is the fifth he’s written and directed) knowing that Anne Dorval, who plays the title character was being touted in some awards circles as a possible nominee for “Best Actress” (she’s flawless in this role, certainly better than the other Best Actress nominees I’ve seen)–as opposed to “Best Supporting Actress.” But this film kept confounding my expectations by keeping its focus on her and not the one who would be the main character of any other film: her at turns charismatic, obnoxious and violent 15-year-old, blonde son Steve (an incredible Antoine-Olivier Pilon).

mommy_cover

The misunderstood, screwed-up manboy/hero is such a persistent trope in films that audiences are often tricked into empathizing with characters whose actions are more deserving of our scorn. At the end of Blue Valentine, when Ryan Gosling’s character separates from his wife, the Michelle Williams character, and leaves the daughter they’ve raised together, I heard someone nearby say aloud, “Poor guy.” But Gosling had, just a scene before, shown up drunk at Williams’ workplace to terrorize and humiliate her (and ends up assaulting her boss, which results in her losing her job). The director and co-writer, Derek Cianfrance, could barely manage to see these actions from the point of view of Williams’ character: the one with whom our empathy would more naturally lie.

I went into Mommy, the magnificent, new film from out, gay, Québécois prodigy Xavier Dolan (he’s 25 and this feature is the fifth he’s written and directed) knowing that Anne Dorval, who plays the title character, was being touted in some awards circles as a possible nominee for “Best Actress” (she’s flawless in this role, certainly better than the other Best Actress nominees I’ve seen)–as opposed to “Best Supporting Actress.” But this film (which won the Jury Prize at Cannes) kept surpassing my expectations by keeping its focus on her and not the one who would be the main character of any other film: her at turns charismatic, obnoxious and violent 15-year-old, blonde son, Steve (an incredible Antoine-Olivier Pilon).

We first meet Dorval’s character, Die (short for Diane), after we see, from a distance, a car crash into hers at a good speed. She staggers out after opening the jammed door, her head bleeding as she curses out the other driver. In the next scene we see her walking in extremely high heels along a hallway filled with several inches of water to meet with the director of the “youth facility” (one small step from a detention facility) where her son has been staying. The resigned bureaucrat behind the desk is more like real-life people who work in social services than the young idealists and abusive villains we usually see in movies. She explains that Steve has set a fire (the reason for the watery hallway) that injured another student, so he’s being expelled into Die’s care. Die objects, but the director tells her she has no choice–unless Die wants to commit him. Die astutely points out that doing so would put him in the pipeline to prison, which she doesn’t want. The director tells her, “We save some, we lose some,” and “Loving people doesn’t save them,” but no one, certainly not Die, can be as philosophical about their own child.

“Skeptics will be proven wrong,” Die retorts. Besides having a sexy wardrobe of high heels, tight jeans, sheer shirts and short skirts (a contrast to how unwilling most films are to acknowledge mothers as sexual beings) we see she also signs her name like a 12-year-old girl–complete with hearts.

MommySon
Mother and son

 

Steve has some psychiatric diagnoses and no impulse control, so even though he has a loving, teasing, quasi-inappropriate relationship with his good-looking, tart-tongued, possibly alcoholic mother, their lives together are measured in the moments between his abuse and violence, some directed toward her, some directed to others. In one of the only scenes in the film that fall flat he makes racist remarks to a Black cab driver, the only person of color we see onscreen. Young, aimless white guys have targeted their anger at Black and brown people through the ages, but filmmakers, especially young ones like Dolan, should understand that audiences need to see POC characters as more than anonymous victims–and more than one in a film that is over two hours.

At one point Steve goes to the mall and in a beautifully stylized sequence (the expert cinematography is by André Turpin) we see him shouting and whirling around with a shopping cart. He shows joy and energy along with the intermittent charm we’ve already witnessed. But when he goes home and shows Die the goods he’s brought with him, including a necklace for her that spells out, “Mommy,” she tells him he has to return this stolen merchandise. He then starts shouting and smashing things, chasing Die, and at one point strangling her until she hits him in the head with a glass-covered picture frame and he retreats. As Die cowers in a locked closet, pleading with Steve through the door to take his medication, she hears him talking calmly to someone and when she ventures out she sees the neighbor from across the street (to whom she has never spoken) dressing the leg wound Steve suffered in the confrontation. Kyla (Suzanne Clément, every bit as great as her co-stars) is about Die’s age and the two have similar features but their personalities and circumstances differ. Kyla has a form of aphasia that seems to be the result of a breakdown. She is “on sabbatical” from her job as a high school teacher and, as we have seen in previous scenes she spends a lot of time facing away from the husband and daughter she lives with, observing Steve and Die through her home’s front window.

MommyTrio
Mother, son, and friend/tutor

 

The three have a convivial dinner together and while Steve is out of the room, Kyla and Die down shots while Die explains that she can’t ever call the police or alert hospitals after an incident like the one that afternoon because the authorities might then take her son away from her. Die states, “Life with Steve is a roll of the dice,” and, “When he loses it, you best scram because it gets ugly.” When Steve returns he encourages them all to dance and sing along with one of his favorite songs.

Kyla, who feels superfluous in her own household, accepts Die’s request to tutor her son while Die goes to a job interview. We see Steve testing Kyla by acting up with her the way he does everyone else, even touching her breasts, but when he pulls a necklace from around her throat and refuses to give it back, Kyla shows the reserves of rage quiet people often have, pushing Steve flat onto the floor. In a lesser movie this scene would be the prelude to a sexual encounter, but Dolan instead makes us see, as Kyla does, that in spite of his bravado and violence Steve is just a screwed-up kid.

What follows is a chronicle of three misfits who, for a time, find what they need in one another. Kyla is Die’s confidante, the only person who really understands her and the situation with her son. Steve likes having Kyla as his tutor and is on his best behavior (which is by no means perfect) in her presence. And Kyla has fun and feels like she has a purpose when she is with Die and Steve. In a bravura moment, the square frame of the film is seemingly stretched by Steve’s own hands into widescreen as Oasis’s “Wonderwall” plays on the soundtrack.

We see, when Die is interrupted as she prepares dinner with the others, that the idyll can’t last (and the screen shrinks back to a square). The classmate at the facility whom Steve injured with fire is suing. The knock at the front door was to serve a subpoena. Still, Die scrambles to “save” her son and in another widescreen sequence imagines a parallel life for him, graduating from high school, going to college, getting married, becoming a parent–and growing tall.

At one point Steve wonders what will happen when his mother doesn’t love him anymore, but she explains to him that he is much more likely to stop loving her than the other way around. In the end we see that no matter the circumstances their bond will continue. But the two women who had been such close friends (friendship between two 40-something women is an unusual enough focus for a film that one would think it rarely occurs offscreen) can hardly face each other anymore. The other’s presence reminds each of what she would most like to forget.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7rtSqI0ZeA” iv_load_policy=”3″]

___________________________________________________

Ren Jender is a queer writer-performer/producer putting a film together. Her writing, besides appearing every week on Bitch Flicks, has also been published in The Toast, RH Reality Check, xoJane and the Feminist Wire. You can follow her on Twitter @renjender

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Check out what we’ve been reading this week–and let us know what you’ve been reading/writing in the comments!

What have you been reading/writing this week? Tell us in the comments!

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Check out what we’ve been reading this week–and let us know what you’ve been reading/writing in the comments!

recommended-red-714x300-12

Cannes Film Festival: Jane Campion Accuses Film Industry of ‘Inherent Sexism’ by Rachel Donadio at The New York Times

This History-Making Marriage Equality Documentary is a Joyful Tearjerker by Sarah Mirk at Bitch Media

Op-ed: Why Days of Our Lives‘ Will & Sonny Might Be the Most Important Couple on TV by Jeremy Helligar at Advocate

The Titillating Nature of Sex: Controversy in ‘Blue is the Warmest Color’

Written by Rachel Redfern

Film poster for Blue is the Warmest Color

Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue is the Warmest Color is the first film with a lesbian protagonist to win the prestigious Palm D’or Award at the Cannes Film Festival. The French drama is based on Julie Maroh’s graphic novel and centers on the life of Adele, a fifteen year-old girl who becomes involved with another young woman. Remarkably, the film is three hours long, which doubles in length the normal hour and half for a romantic comedy in the US, a fact that must develop an enormously powerful love story.

The movie received high praise from critics, and both lead actresses, Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux, were given the Palme as a special prize due to their outstanding performances. Similarly, the film comes at a particularly important moment since France passed a bill allowing gay marriage only a few weeks ago, a bill that has been at the center of huge debates and massive rioting.

However, praise for the movie has been tempered by the controversy of its two graphic sex scenes that have a length on par with the film. While no one has clocked it yet, many have said that the scenes were at least ten minutes in length. This criticism has also been echoed by the writer of the graphic novel, Julie Maroh. 

Abdellatif Kechiche, Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux at the Cannes Film Festival

It’s no secret that Maroh was disappointed in the two sex scenes, essentially calling them pornographic. It’s important to note that she wasn’t mad about the inclusion of sex scenes, but rather specifically called out the director on the lack of realism in the aforementioned scenes. In fact, as is the intention of pornography, she felt that the two scenes served no other purpose than to essentially live out a male director’s fantasies.

According to a statement written by Maroh in regard to fact that the audience was giggling during the scenes, 

“The heteronormative laughed because they don’t understand it and find the scene ridiculous. The gay and queer people laughed because it’s not convincing, and found it ridiculous. And among the only people we didn’t hear giggling were the potential guys too busy feasting their eyes on an incarnation of their fantasies on screen.”

It’s not hard to sense Maroh’s pain here and with good reason since her reasons for writing Blue is the Warmest Color was to, “catch the attention of those who had no clue, who had the wrong picture based on false ideas.” Considering that Maroh intended to offer a more realistic portrayal of lesbian relationships and that instead she felt her goal had been reduced to the very unrealistic portrayal of lesbian pornographic sex, it’s easy to see why she would be upset.

This leads to some interesting questions about the nature of sex, specifically sex between women, in film. For instance, if the director had been female would the outcome have been different? Maroh believes that Kechiche was utilizing a very popular male gaze in the filming of those scenes; perhaps if the director had been a woman the scenes would have been different? However, if we follow that logic it would seem then that lesbian sex in art can only be created by other women? 

Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color

Women sleeping with women constitutes a massive portion of the pornographic film industry; there’s been an almost mythic build-up around the erotic nature of two women having sex. In that case, is there anyway to have non-pornographic lesbian sex scenes? Or is it meant only for the male gaze? (I say male gaze here only because it seems more suitable. While many women would also find it erotic, Maroh felt that it was catering to a very male sexual fantasy.)

Also, it should be noted that not every critic agrees that the scenes were pornographic. Richard Porton on The Daily Beast asks a fair question: “Should men—or for that matter women—aroused by these scenes be moralistically dissed as the arthouse equivalents of the raincoat brigade?” The film is a coming of age story, specifically a story of sexual awakening for a young girl. Sex, is by it’s nature erotic; any movie or novel that attempts to really portray the intensity of vibrant sexuality has to be, well…sexy.

Consider one of my favorite movies, Turn Me On Dammit, which portrays the heterosexual sexual awakening of a young girl but also features a scene where the main character fantasizes about one of her female friends. It’s showing a fantasy; therefore, it is titillatingalthough a bit silly. Perhaps it was the layer of humor then that kept those scenes from the same controversy and scrutiny as Blue is the Warmest Color? (Well, that and the fact that the scene is only about forty seconds long as opposed to a full ten minutes.)

What about heterosexual sex scenes? Is it possible to have non-pornographic heterosexual sex scenes? I would argue yes, Rules of Attraction, Melancholia, and hundreds of other films have done it. But has it been done with two women having sex? I have to say it’s hard for me to think of any.

However, should we not consider that as we continue to espouse the ideals of a more open and tolerant societyone in which sexuality in many forms is considered appropriatethat we will not agree with the portrayal of every sex scene? Could it also be argued that the director was merely displaying sex in a way that he found beautiful and fascinating?

To be fair, Maroh did differentiate between her perception of the film as a writer, where she understood the sex scenes to be another part of Kechiche’s vision, and her perception as a lesbian in which she felt it was inappropriate. But isn’t that the beauty and purpose of art? To showcase life from a variety of perspectives?

What do you think? Are there lesbian sex scenes that are not pornographic?

I’m sorry to only focus on the most tabloidy feature of an obviously powerful movie, but as it hasn’t been released yet, I’m afraid that I can comment little on the rest of the movie. Also, as stories about homosexuality become more and more a part of film, the hypersexualization of lesbian sex is something that needs to be addressed. Also, perhaps my own judgment of the scenes will be different after actually viewing them. 

There is no trailer yet for Blue is the Warmest Color, but two film clips have been released. Go here and here if you’d like to view them.


Rachel Redfern has an MA in English literature, where she conducted research on modern American literature and film and its intersection; however, she spends most of her time watching HBO shows, traveling, and blogging and reading about feminism.

LGBTQI Week: Growing Up Queer: ‘Water Lilies’ (2007) and ‘Tomboy’ (2011)

This is a guest review by Max Thornton.
Céline Sciamma’s films are ever so French. Light on dialogue, they tend to rely on lingering shots of longing glances and exquisite mise-en-scène to reveal character; loosely plotted, they leave the impression less of a story than of a series of vignettes, of tiny moments freighted with great import.

These techniques are uniquely suited to the onscreen portrayal of adolescence. It almost seems churlish to complain that Water Lilies and Tomboy lack full structural coherence, because that’s arguably intentional. Growing up, after all, is not a tightly-plotted three-act hero’s journey with clear turning points, tidy linear progression through the successive stages of personal development, and a satisfying ending. It’s a messy and confusing struggle to find a place in the world, littered with incidents that may or may not ultimately be significant (with no way to tell the difference), and most of the time the morals make no sense.

Sciamma instinctively understands this, and the little stories she tells of growing up queer are given vivid life through her two greatest strengths as a filmmaker: her ability to coax marvelously deep and naturalistic performances out of her young actors, and her eye for a strikingly memorable little scene that perfectly encapsulates a moment of overpowering adolescent emotion – the normally boisterous Anne clutching at a lamppost and weeping in Water Lilies, for example, or Tomboy‘s Laure curling up on the couch, thumb in mouth, suddenly overwhelmed by an earlier humiliation.

Both films are carried on the remarkably expressive faces of their lead actresses. There are no voice-over monologues or expository conversations, but both Water Lilies and Tomboy present the inner life of their protagonists with stunning depth and rawness.

Movie poster for Water Lilies
The protagonist of Water Lilies is Pauline Acquart’s Marie, a quiet fifteen-year-old with a crush on Floriane, star of the local synchronized swimming team. Marie’s best friend Anne, meanwhile, has her eye on Floriane’s boyfriend François. So far, so Gossip Girl, but there is nothing over-dramatic or sensationalistic about the way this love quadrilateral plays out. Although the film’s primary focus is on the blossoming friendship between Marie and Floriane, there is a clear thematic through-line of what it is to grow up female in the patriarchy. Marie, Anne, and Floriane all embody different ways of being young women, and especially young women coming into their sexuality.

Anne, though less conventionally feminine than the other girls, is confidently heterosexual and determined to sleep with the boy she finds attractive. Marie is so eager to spend time with Floriane that she agrees to help her sneak out to meet François, and her yearnings for the lithe bodies slipping through the water are beautifully conveyed through moments such as the shot of Marie shifting, flustered, as Floriane unselfconsciously changes into a swimsuit right in front of her. Floriane herself, despite the reputation she cultivates (perhaps recognizing that denial would be futile – once branded a “slut,” a teenage girl is hopelessly trapped in a no-win morass of contradictory social pressures), eventually confesses to Marie that she has never actually had sex, and in fact is afraid to do so.

“If you don’t want to do it, don’t.”

“I have to.”

“Where did you read that?”

“All over my face, apparently. If he finds out I’m not a real slut, it’s over.”

Floriane recounts several instances of sexual harassment from men; when Marie has no similar stories to share, Floriane tells her, “You’re lucky… very lucky.” And perhaps to some extent she is. Perhaps, as Anne and Marie float fully-clothed in the pool at the end of the movie, while Floriane dances alone for the boys she’s not certain she even wants to be with, they are considering their good fortune: they, at least, are strong enough to defy the patriarchal dictates around female sexual behavior, to name and claim their desires (or lack thereof), to make mistakes and learn from them without being defined by them. Growing up female in this world is hard, but they know they will make it.
Movie poster Tomboy
Tomboy tells a very different story of growing up queer. Zoé Héran turns in a truly remarkable performance as androgynous ten-year-old Laure, who, on moving to a new neighborhood, is asked by the friendly Lisa, “T’es nouveau?” – “Are you new?” – in a way that genders Laure male. In that moment, Laure becomes Mikael, a boy who spends a happy summer among his new friends and his puppy-love girlfriend Lisa. For the duration of the summer, Laure is confined to home and family (well-meaning dad, heavily pregnant mom, hyper-femme little sister Jeanne), and Mikael is the face presented to the world.

Any ten-year-old lives in the present, and Mikael meets each challenge as it arises – sneaking away deep into the woods when the other boys casually take a pee break; snipping a girl’s swimsuit into a boy’s, and constructing a Play-Doh packer to fill it; swearing Jeanne to secrecy when Lisa unwittingly tells her about Mikael – even as it becomes increasingly clear to the viewer that eventually Laure’s parents must find out about Mikael. As loving as they are, they still exert some gender-policing of their oldest child: Mom’s delight at hearing that Laure has made a female friend (“You’re always hanging out with the boys”) might have been tempered if she’d remembered that “copine” can also mean girlfriend!

The relationships between the various children are superbly observed, and constitute reason enough to see Tomboy in themselves. The energetic activities of childish horseplay that give Mikael such joy in himself and in his body – dancing enthusiastically with Lisa, playing soccer shirtless, wrestling in swimsuits on the dock – are balanced by the many lovely domestic scenes demonstrating the closeness of Laure’s relationship with Jeanne. This is honestly one of the most moving and genuine cinematic portrayals of a sibling relationship in years, and after her initial shock Jeanne takes to the idea of Mikael like a duck to water, boasting to another child about her awesome big brother, and telling her parents that her favorite of Laure’s new friends is Mikael.

The parents themselves, unfortunately, are much less accepting of Mikael. The film’s ending is ambiguous, allowing for multiple readings of the exact nature of Laure’s queerness; indeed, the film has been criticized as “an appropriation of trans narratives by a cis filmmaker toward her own purposes”; but to me the ending is terribly unhappy. With deep breaths and with profound conflict on Héran’s preternaturally expressive face, the character is forced to claim “Laure,” the name and gender assigned at birth and not the ones of choice. The cissupremacy has won this round.

Though Tomboy is the better film, the two movies make excellent companion pieces. Between them they depict a range of queerness and explore a variety of strategies for growing up queer (and/or female) in a hostile world. And yet they offer no easy solutions, no cheap moralizing, no promise that it gets better. These films, and the characters they portray, simply are. And, in the end, isn’t that the one universal truth of queer people? There is no ur-narrative of queerness. There is no right or wrong way to be queer. We simply are.

———-

Max Thornton is a grad student and a stranger in a strange land, who writes words at Gay Christian Geek and has previously contributed a review of No Country For Old Men.

Movie Preview: Life, Above All

 

I saw a preview for Life, Above All when I went to see Woody Allen’s latest misogyny-fest, Midnight in Paris. For the record, I mostly hated Midnight in Paris–and should review it as the sexist piece of crap it is–but I’m trying to find examples of positivity in the film industry these days. The only truly great thing about attending Midnight in Paris was discovering the upcoming Life, Above All (now playing in New York and L.A.) and the upcoming Take Shelter–holy crap that’s a freaky trailer.

Michael Shannon scares me.
Anyway, the official Web site synopsizes Life, Above All as follows:
Just after the death of her newly-born sister, Chanda, 12 years old, learns of a rumor that spreads like wildfire through her small, dust-ridden village near Johannesburg. It destroys her family and forces her mother to flee. Sensing that the gossip stems from prejudice and superstition, Chanda leaves home and school in search of her mother and the truth. Life, Above All is an emotional and universal drama about a young girl (stunningly performed by first-time-actress Khomotso Manyaka) who fights the fear and shame that have poisoned her community … Directed by South African filmmaker Oliver Schmitz (Mapantsula), it is based on the international award winning novel Chanda’s Secrets by Allan Stratton.

The trailer itself gets me teary-eyed. I watched it and realized how rarely mother-daughter relationships grace the screen in a way that doesn’t portray the mother as smothering and ridiculous and usually insane, and at the very least, just … shitty. (See: Black Swan, Carrie, Mommie Dearest, Phoebe in Wonderland, Gone Baby Gone, Fish Tank, and the upcoming Ansiedad. Add screen portrayals of the Mother-in-Law to the list, and it’s a disturbing clusterfuck of epic proportions.) 

While a few reviewers argue that Life, Above All ignores the government’s responsibilities in the HIV/AIDS crisis in South Africa (like the film failing to mention former president Thabo Mbeki’s sympathies with AIDS denialists in the 00’s), I’m excerpting from several positive reviews that focus on the interpersonal relationships in the film:

By Liz Braun:

Life, Above All is an historical snapshot of the AIDS crisis in Africa and an indictment of sorts of the government bungling that allowed the epidemic to overwhelm South Africa. The culprits (ignorance, poverty, big pharma, religious and political leaders, etc.) are not so much the focus; the point of this quiet, heartbreaking drama is all those children left to cope, especially the orphans.

By Nora Lee Mandel:

Rather than focusing on the usual corrective lessons on the transmission and treatment of HIV/AIDS, the family’s struggles play out within systems of traditional care and limited modern medical facilities that are strained to the breaking point. Chanda rails against the stoic comforts of religion and receives only discouraging advice at an overcrowded clinic. Her illiterate and exhausted mother falls prey to the greed of a charlatan doctor, a demon exorcism, and horrific neglect by her revengeful sister, who has not forgiven Lillian for her flouting of tribal marriage traditions for the sake of love.

By Manohla Dargis:

Chanda’s silence is unnerving, as is the absence of tears, and while her calm conveys a preternatural strength of character it also suggests a lifetime of pain. No child, you think, should have to pick out her baby sister’s coffin. But she does, taking in the horror of the funeral home and its metal table without flinching and then pushing forward, still dry eyed, still determined, taking on life with an appealing (and enviable) toughness and grace that make this difficult story not just bearable but also absorbing. As the weight of the world bears down on her slender frame, she becomes the movie’s moral compass and its authentic wonder: the child who is forced to be an adult yet remains childlike enough to feel real.

By Mary Corliss:

Two years ago, a drama with a seemingly forbidding subject — an illiterate teenage girl, pregnant with her father’s child and hellishly abused by her drug-addicted mother — won over critics, audiences and the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The film was Precious. Now comes Life, Above All, which deals with the tragedy of AIDS in South Africa, as seen by a 12-year-old girl named Chanda. At the end of its world premiere at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, critics cheered like schoolkids, giving it a 10-minute standing ovation.

By Alison Willmore

… when its focus narrows onto Manyaka and her mother (Lerato Mvelase), their deep mutual affection and the terrifying sacrifices they’re ready to make because of it, the film sings, becoming a moving tribute to love holding fast against suffering. The ending, which offers a hint of relief, is unfiltered, frankly unbelievable melodrama, but something grimmer and more measured would be intolerable after everything that comes before.

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