Skip to main content

Ma vie en rose (French) [My Life In Pink]

This was such a breath of fresh air. Although the film is over 15 years old, it is probably as relevant as today. I have been watching more and more cinema on gender identity issues and they have all been very interesting and eye-opening for me personally to understand the people better. Th film is comic yet heartbreaking and the subject is very sensitively handled by the director.

Seven-year old Ludovic lives in an upper-middle class Belgian suburban neighborhood. He behaves in a way that is quite natural to him, dresses in a dress or skirt whenever possible, and is quite convinced he will be marrying a neighborhood boy, Jerome, the son of his father's boss. He knows a boy doesn't marry a boy , so he will marry Jerome when he becomes a girl. The rest of the family humor him as best they can, rationalizing that Ludovic is only trying to find his identity and will be over it soon. While playing a game Ludovic and Jerome are caught while pretending to marry which is seen by Jerome's mother. The situation worsens when Ludovic stands in a Snowwhite for a school play. The parents of other kids file a petition to have him expelled. Ludovic's parents are so far very supportive and understanding and take him to a psychologist regularly. Ludovic's father gets fired after he shows up in a skirt to a party. Suddenly the all supportive mother starts blaming the young Ludovic for everything. She wants to set Ludo straight so she cuts his hair to make him look like his brothers. Ludo hates his mother for doing this and wants to live with his grandmother. The family later moves to a new town, where Ludovic befriends Chris, a girl who wishes to function as a male. The parents slowly start coming around in the new neighborhood.

Ludovic's parents confront the problem of their son's sexual identity with a minimum of hysterics, which is not to say that each of them don't go ballistic at least once. But even at moments of maximum stress, they never stop loving their self-proclaimed ''boygirl,'who thinks that God just misplaced one of his chromosomes as explained by his sister, and he will soon be a girl. The fantasy element of "Pam", a "Barbie-Doll-like" fictional character, serves as an escape for Ludovic and somehow its well in the whole storyline. My favorite thing about the movie is that it is neither over the top or unnecessarily melodramatic. I wonder how many parents would actually be so loving and supporting even in worst times like the way Ludovics parents were shown. Even the siblings were pretty normal in the sense they didn't bully or overtly support Ludovic. They are all kids after all and trying to figure out a lot of things themselves. The film captures well the sense of confusion and panic that can occur to any child when the sense of a warm, safe family environment is suddenly punctured when it bumps up against social expectations.

This film accurately portrays the struggles that hundreds of youth face today. Youth that are struggling to discover their identities, having to deal with family and friends that tease and taunt them for being "different". (7/10)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Shortest Distance is Round 3: Fallen Flowers

Continuing with the weird trilogy of "The Shortest Distance", I am so glad that finally I am done with part 3 and won't have to deal with this again in future. Thankfully, as of now the makers have not announced any further parts; which will save all of us on this earth from the embarrassment of watching this in near future. After the first 10 minutes are used in sort of recapping bits of first two parts, the story moves forward. Haruto is now starting to have feelings for Ruka, the mysterious pole dancer from second part. In a fit of rage, Ruka ends up killing the goat man and to save him and Haruto, Shibahara asks them to go underground. Meanwhile Shibahara continues the search for Seiya (the guy who had cut off Haruto's penis). It turns out Seiya is now also taking care of the original club owner from part 1. Both of them were released after they had informed Shibahara of Aoyama's secret location. Shibahara tortures Seiya's boyfriend leading to Seiya killin

One Summer Night (Korean)

I really wanted to like this film but for non native speakers, these movie leaves a lot to be understood and the way scenes were unfolding in front of me, I wasn't sure many times what was really going on. The story had potential button getting any back story on any of the characters limited my ability to empathize with any of these actors. Film starts with two North Korea military guys Yong Joon and Jae Sung having sex and they are caught red handed and they run. Three years later we see Yong Joon in Seoul leading a very mundane and poor life. He has a boyfriend Tae-Kyu, who is a weird guy. He is carefree, doesn't do any work and is completely emotional and financially dependent on Young Joon. In fact, even Yong Joon will go to any lengths to protect him , fend for him and taking care of him to the extent of even taking up prostitution. Suddenly one day Jae Sung appears in their life again. His motivation is not clear but it is obvious he wants Yong Joon back in his life, who

Ultimate masturbation: Shigoki no yama (Japanese) [The Ultimate Masturbation]

I would never know what was the point behind making this film. Was it supposed to be a comedy, cos it wasn't. It wasn't even porn. It was just a silly attempt at making something absolutely senseless and ridiculous. The story, as well as direction is equally shoddy. You could laugh for having seen something so bad, but I wouldn't call that comedy. An old man runs a camp about gay masturbation. The explanation given is that gays masturbate for pleasure unlike straight men, for whom the act is seen as shame or because they can't find a woman. One day a straight man shows up and wants to join the camp for his thesis. After discussion, he is allowed in. Rules include that you can masturbate together, you can masturbate one another, but there is no fellatio or anal sex. Some students of course breaks rule. The teacher then talks about 2 forms of masturbation which gives ultimate pleasure. He shows one without touching and then refuses to talk of the other. Somehow suddenly,