Girl

 

Director Lukas Dhont

Dhont with Victor Polster

Victor Polster

Dhont with Victor Polster

Angelo Tijssens, Victor Polster, and Lukas Dhont

GIRL              B+                                                                                                                      Belgium  Netherlands  (105 mi)  2018  d: Lukas Dhont                             

I don’t want to be an example.  I want to be a girl.                                                                          —Lara (Victor Polster)

A somewhat radical work inspired by the life of trans dancer Nora Monsecour, born male with aspirations of becoming a ballerina, it initially screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival with Monsecour in attendance, where it received a standing ovation that lasted through the entirety of the credits, winning the Camera d’Or award for best first feature film, also winning the Queer Palm, while 15-year-old actor Victor Polster won the Un Certain Regard Jury Award for Best Performance.  This is a deeply moving and in-your-face portrait of the travails associated with gender conversion, where hormone therapy and the anticipation of gender reassignment surgery accentuate not only the physical challenges, but the existential duress of having to wait, which becomes overly suffocating, underscored by the overly restrained performance of Polster, perfectly capturing her repressed inner thoughts and feelings, where she even gets bullied by the other girls, who have an advantage, as they’ve always been a girl, so they feel comfortable in their self-identity, while a woman in transition is flooded by anxiety and self-doubt, where nothing ever feels right, forever waiting to just feel comfortable in your own body.  The film has faced some heavy criticism because the main character isn’t played by an actual transgender, fueled by trans critic Oliver Whitney’s alarmist guest essay from The Hollywood Reporter, describing the film as a “danger to the transgender community,” claiming the film has a “disturbing fascination with trans bodies,” focusing on a dramatically impactful scene near the end, describing it as sadistic exploitation, basically trans trauma porn for uneducated audiences, echoed by Northwestern Gender & Sexual Studies professor Nick Davis in Film Comment, who believes the film is part of a long history of cruel, transphobic storytelling, Short Take: Girl, finding the voyeuristic finale unforgiving, Nick-Davis.com: Girl, Cathy Brennan from BFI Sight and Sound thinks it accentuates fears, (It's winning awards, but Girl is no victory for trans ...), Caden Mark Gardner from Reverse Shot (Girl) thinks the film is potentially harmful in its “abhorrent irresponsibility,” Tre’vell Anderson from Out magazine claims it’s a missed opportunity to properly contextualize the experience, (Netflix's 'Girl' is Dangerous and Doesn't Deserve an Oscar), while further skepticism is voiced by K. Austin Collins from Vanity Fair (There's No Good Reason to Watch Belgium's Controversial ...), expressing outright anger in the reckless way the trans experience is overly traumatized, with a collective view finding it dangerously self-destructive while bordering on transphobic.  Clearly the film has polarized the gay and trans community on which it focuses, yet Dhont has weathered the criticism and steadfastly defended his “right” to tell the story, where there’s nothing erotic or fetishized in his style, while Monsecour responded to Whitney with her own guest essay (Belgium Oscar Submission 'Girl' Is a “Message of Courage”), writing that “those criticizing Girl are preventing another trans story from being shared in the world, and are also attempting to silence me and my trans identity.”  While the criticisms are valid and should not be overlooked, they feel like a distinctly American reaction, excessively harsh, fixated on rendering judgment, as if there’s a “right way” to contextualize the trans experience, yet there are more benefits to this film than is suggested.  This film does not attempt to speak for everyone, but provides an authentic character–driven narrative that’s applicable to one person’s search for identity, which is beautifully realized, serving as an example to a young director, courageously believing a trans story deserved to be heard, offering a unique window into an experience that viewers would not otherwise have, which couldn’t be more relevant.   Despite having a loving and supporting family, encountering difficulties is the norm, with nearly half of transgender and nonbinary youth in America considering suicide in 2022, and just under one in five attempting suicide (the numbers are higher for people of color), which is exacerbated by anti-trans laws that outlaw literature, art, histories, and even health care, a sentiment raging through the Republican Party in America at the moment, introducing more than 400 anti-trans bills already this year in an attempt to legislate them out of existence. Republican legislative leaders in Montana, in a strictly party-line vote, just voted to banish Democratic Rep. Zooey Zephyr (ZoAndBehold - Rep. Zooey Zephyr), the state’s first transgender legislator, from participating in the legislative session on the House floor, barred from all debates, prohibited from entering the chambers until the end of the legislative session, relegated to a bench in the hallway and will only be allowed to vote remotely, Montana Republicans bar transgender lawmaker from House floor for rest of session.  There is no sense that this film in any way shapes that political argument, which is motivated purely by transphobic hatred, yet this deeply humane film does offer an immersive psychological perspective that may help lead to a more educated and openly empathetic viewpoint, shedding light on a subject that has long been ignored. 

It should be noted that Lukas Dhont is an openly gay filmmaker who embraces LGBTQ themes, having worked as a costume design assistant on film and television sets when he was a teenager while his mother works as a fashion teacher at an art school.  Still in the closet when he entered film school, with a younger brother Michiel who’s also gay, he had his own experiences making that transition into being himself, describing that period in his life, “Not only about my sexuality, I was just also not myself.  I think I had created this armor to protect me.  One of my teachers said, ‘You don’t seem to have a personality.’  She was so right.  I had become this collage of other people’s personalities.”  Discovering his own identity after watching Belgium filmmaker Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce,1080 Bruxelles (1975), he immersed himself into the works of gay filmmakers Céline Sciamma, Xavier Dolan, and Pedro Almodóvar, and there is an intimacy to the film that evokes the near documentary style of Sciamma’s Tomboy (2011), with an original score by Valentin Hadjadj, 22D Prod / Valentin Hadjadj - Flying (From "GIRL" Original ... YouTube (3:17).  Written in collaboration with theater director Angelo Tijssens, taking ten years before bringing this work into fruition, their real objective was to make a film about gender dysphoria that transgenders could identify with, as there are so few films they can connect with, one of the few being Sebastián Lelio’s A Fantastic Woman (Una Mujer Fantástica) (2018), which features a remarkable performance from a transgender actress.  It should also be pointed out that Nora Monsecour, who worked closely with both Dhont and Polster on the film, was “really offended” by Whitney’s comments, especially those that invalidate her experience with suggestions that Dhont made the film out of his cisgender perspective.  In an interview with indieWIRE (Girl: Netflix Film Stirs Controversy Over Who Owns Trans ...), she clarified that “My story is not a fantasy of the cis director.  Lara’s story is my story,” and while it isn’t a biography, “the essence of the story is the same.”  According to Monsecour, she was similarly bullied, and had teachers who “didn’t believe that transgender was something that existed in the world,” eventually moving away from ballet into contemporary dance.  She has enthusiastically endorsed Polster’s performance, acknowledging, “In one of our first conversations, I said to Lukas that I didn’t care at all if the actor was male, female, transgender, lesbian, gay.  For me, it was very important that Lara… be played by someone who had a lot of love and empathy for the character, [and] was also a very good dancer.  When I saw pictures of Victor, I thought to myself, ‘this is it, he is it.’ ”  The film follows Lara (Victor Polster), a 15-year old trans girl and aspiring ballet dancer who is frustrated that her hormone therapy isn’t working fast enough and that her body is different from the other girls in her class, constantly checking herself in the mirror, becoming an intensive exposé of her inner conflict and her struggle for self-acceptance.  To dance as a woman requires en pointe skills (Pointe technique), only taught to girls, so Lara is years behind, yet to dance professionally she needs to be accepted into a highly competitive girls’ class at the prestigious Royal Ballet School in Antwerp, with additional one-on-one time needed from a private instructor, played by the real-life Belgian choreographer Marie-Louise Wilderijckx.  Featuring extensive footage of physically demanding classes, Lara is both in her element and out of it at the same time, blending in beautifully with a group of extremely talented young dancers, yet the meticulous steps she takes to tape her male genitals to her body has its costs, placing her body through additional stress, enduring more pain than the others, which accumulates with each session, preferring to use a private restroom afterwards, remaining isolated as she removes the tape, leaving behind nasty red marks.  Interspered are regular visits with a team of sex reassignment doctors, including psychiatrist Dr. Pascal (Valentijn Dhaenens) and surgeon Dr. Naert (Katelijne Damen), who evaluate her readiness for the procedure, requiring multiple evaluations, always accompanied by her father (Arieh Worthalter), and while consistently offering encouragement, she’s obviously frustrated at the length of time it takes before scheduling the surgery.  Making matters worse, she refuses to discuss her feelings with her father, always indicating everything’s fine, though she’s rapidly losing weight from the grueling rehearsals and enveloping anxiety.  

Lara never conveys the emotions bubbling under the surface and struggles to maintain an even disposition, but there are moments where a line is crossed.  She has an affectionate relationship with her younger brother Milo (Olivar Bodart), often falling asleep in her arms, and while there’s an absent mother, there are indications this is a loving and supportive family.  Rushing to get Milo ready for school one morning, her little brother is uncooperative, forcing Lara to dress him, but he rebuffs her attempts, angrily calling her Victor, the male name she was born with, creating a deafening pause that seems to last an eternity.  Never one to overreact, she keeps her emotions in check, but she’s devastated by the cruel intent coming from such a loving source.  Complicating matters, Lara is going through adolescent puberty, encouraged by her psychiatrist to explore her romantic inclinations, as that’s something she needn’t put on hold, suggesting she’s just like anyone else in this regard.  There’s a neighbor in her building that interests her, Lewis (Tijmen Govaerts), so she cleverly choreographs chance meetings, hoping her attraction will open up new opportunities, yet as things get intimate, she hesitates, terrified about being exposed, and ends up bolting out of fear.  While she’s led to believe she already is a woman, and who she wants to be, she’s just not there yet.  While she is surprisingly accepted at school (reflective of Belgium’s progressive social tolerance), allowed to use the woman’s restroom with no issue, not really standing out, the same can’t be said for how she’s viewed by the other female dancers, who are more than a little curious about her male anatomy, and while the girls shower together after class, Lara always disappears, which only heightens their growing suspicions.  One of the dancers openly confronts her, handing her a towel, leaving her no avenues of escape, so she joins the other girls while wearing shorts in the communal shower, yet it clearly pains her to be there, choosing to be off to the side, while the others joke around and talk amongst themselves like teenage girls.  This leads to a sleepover, where she’s led to believe she’s been accepted as one of the girls, yet she’s offered separate living quarters away from the other girls, an ominous sign, but then she’s cornered by a dozen women and bullied into exposing her male anatomy, causing great distress, fleeing in embarrassment afterwards, arriving home unexpectedly, surprising her father who’s with another woman on an apparent date, which just elevates the awkwardness of the moment.  The tension only escalates, as her doctors are concerned by the breakdown of body tissue from her continual taping during dance rehearsals, something they don’t recommend, as the possibility for infection increases over time, which will further delay her plans for surgery.  The emotional trauma is really exposed in this film, as Lara feels more and more like a stranger in someone else’s body.  When she takes her doctor’s advice and dances without the tape, the anxiety it causes is overwhelming, which affects her ability to dance, losing her balance and sense of self, where it’s a struggle to make it through the lesson, sweating profusely, something she never does.  This becomes an excruciating ordeal that borders on psychological horror, veering into the grotesque, a metaphor for the disturbing territory of suicidal impulses that are taking over, becoming a calamity of epic proportions, reflecting the reality of the experience where so many have lost their lives because they could not accept themselves.  While it is never an issue whether a trans women is able to perform with her biological counterparts, the psychological toll it takes is simply overwhelming, exposing her darkest thoughts, where it can become insufferable after a while.  Filming by Frank van den Eeden is mostly done with hand-held cameras, often shot in close quarters, emphasizing a feeling of being cramped and claustrophobic.  It’s a moving and highly accomplished portrait of the difficulties associated with any transgender realignment, told through a social realist lens, where the obsession with the human anatomy is especially applicable in the world of ballet, as the human form expresses the artistic vision in a relentless pursuit of perfection, with the film offering a real sense of the physicality of ballet and the toll it takes on Lara’s body.  The isolation she experiences is accentuated by what’s uniquely different about her, where the harrowing journey is about struggling to find acceptance, learning to love yourself, offering hope for those struggling through similar circumstances, with the director meticulously taking viewers through the depths of the experience.    

watch dancer Nora Monsecour perform YouTube (2:24)

Moonage Daydream

 

Director Brett Morgen

MOONAGE DAYDREAM          B                                                                                                 USA  Germany  (135 mi)  2022  d: Brett Morgen

At the turn of the 20th century, Friedrich Nietzsche proclaimed that God is dead and that man had killed him.                                                                                                                             This created an arrogance with man that he himself was God.  But as God, all he could seem to produce was disaster.                                                                                                                   That led to a terrifying confusion: for if we could not take the place of God, how could we fill the space we had created within ourselves?                                                                        —David Bowie, 2002

A Proustian plunge into the subconsciousness of David Bowie, and whether you like him or not, this is impressive filmmaking, resembling the ecstatic surrealism of Guy Maddin, who lives in that subliminal world, where the use of vintage film clips is simply astonishing, interweaving bits and pieces from Georges Méliès’ A TRIP TO THE MOON (1902), F.W. Murnau’s NOSFERATU (1922), and Fritz Lang’s METROPOLIS (1927), all the way up to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and A Clockwork Orange (1971), and a whole bunch more (every movie featured in Moonage Daydream), resembling what Martin Scorsese did with archival clips in Hugo in 3D (2011), where obtaining the rights was an essential component of this film.  The oversaturated color is simply spectacular, shot on an IMAX camera, so if you’re a fan of David Bowie, this film is epic, the kind of thing you’d drop acid to watch back in the 60’s (Brett Morgen wants you to watch 'Moonage Daydream' on drugs), as it luxuriates in a hypnotic kaleidoscope of psychedelic colors, using never-before-seen archival footage, some of it rare and never broadcast before, officially authorized by the Bowie estate, where musical material is mixed with choice interviews of Bowie, including a stream of monologues, creating the effect of narrating personalized bits from his own diary.  Morgen is a tireless archivist who spent seven years with the material, experiencing a heart attack in between, which forced him to examine his own life more closely, channeling Bowie as a role model, where spontaneity became the key takeaway, reconfiguring a more personalized vision, weaving together an impressionistic collage of previously unseen performances, unheard recordings (most played in their entirety thankfully), some rare 16mm film stock, experimental video art, including abstract graphics and animations from Stefan Nadelman, never before seen paintings, drawings, home movie clips, photographs, journals, while a constant sound of Bowie’s music is mixed with his voice philosophically ruminating on subjects like spirituality, travel, aging, mortality, gender fluidity, and chaos.  The irrepressible artist openly expresses weaknesses and contradictions, while also acknowledging private and artistic crises, where the imperfections of the artist become part of his persona which go hand-in-hand with the idea of personal growth, where you have to learn to accept who you are, yet the film omits drug and alcohol problems, while only cautiously touching upon his aloofness.  Born David Robert Jones in London, coming from an ordinary childhood in the Brixton suburbs, Bowie suggests it’s a natural reaction to want to get out and explore the rest of the world, questioning who he is and what he wants to be, while continually evolving and discovering himself in the process, often appearing as strange and unworldly as he could be, not afraid of cross-dressing, insisting that it’s okay to be off-kilter and unabashedly weird.  Early in his career, Bowie views himself as a stranger to himself, as he was not that comfortable with himself, shy and struggling at times with confidence, afraid to show his vulnerability, claiming “I’m a collector and I seem to collect personalities.”  He rose to prominence in glam costumes that experimented with androgynous transgender dressing, appearing onstage with different alter-ego characters, though the lines are often blurred between them, including Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Halloween Jack, the Thin White Duke, and the Blind Prophet, becoming a 70’s superstar in London, having an impact throughout Britain, where he can be seen performing with Jeff Beck doing an I’m a Man Yardbirds riff before amusingly breaking out into the Beatles’ Love Me Do at one point, Love me do - David Bowie - Moonage Daydream Clip - YouTube (2:56).  Some of this resembles Mick Jagger in Nicolas Roeg’s Performance (1970), where he wants to inhabit a different identity, mirroring the various onstage personas that Bowie assumes, while also feeling like an alien inhabiting the earth, a perpetual outsider, assuming that intergalactic role in Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), where he eventually comes to resemble David Byrne in those oversized pastel suits, drawing inspiration from the world of art, painting, drawing, dancing, and sculpting throughout his life, using creative outlets to help him stay in touch with his inner realm, while also traveling the world, developing an avid interest in photography, where he can simply immerse himself into a different culture as an anonymous observer.   

The highly subjective, experimental nature of this film is not for everyone, as it doesn’t follow a linear, biographic progression, doesn’t fill in the missing pieces of his life, and provides no talking points, no references to his many collaborators, where very little is actually identified, offering no timeline, instead it’s an immersive experience expressed through a stream-of-consciousness montage that takes us inside the artist’s ever-evolving interior realm in an attempt to get inside his head, where music unleashes the ferocity of his artistic identity.  While the Velvets and the Andy Warhol Factory got there first, David Bowie took glam rock and made it a lifestyle, extending the boundaries of nontraditional gender identity, where his impact cannot be ignored.  David Bowie has not been a touchstone in everybody’s lives, which may be a generational thing, so when he mentions he has an older brother who introduces him to Jack Kerouac, John Coltrane, Buddhism, and William S. Burroughs, some may immediately identify with that brother (whose sad end is tragically mentioned), coming from an earlier generation who were no longer kids by the time Bowie arrives, already young adults assuming responsibilities and careers, immersed in the working world, married and starting families, where the androgynous exploration of Ziggy Stardust is simply not on their radar, as the pubescent fascination doesn’t really resonate.  Bowie provocatively suggests, at one point, that one of the biggest mistakes of modern society is an overriding need to avoid chaos, instead of embracing and confronting it head-on, which may help understand his artistic sensibility, but it’s also hard to really believe that we should all be embracing more chaos in our lives, as maintaining some degree of emotional balance and overall stability is dependent upon not having to deal with more disruptive chaos, where the negative impact can be overwhelmingly destructive.  One senses that he’s speaking from a position of privilege to even suggest such a thing, as most of us are already dealing with such a staggering amount of chaotic political interference which actually precludes any possibility of happiness.  History is filled with hateful atrocities and targeted persecution, where the inflicted trauma feels like an onslaught of unending chaos, so it’s hard to really get behind that idea.  For those who are not avid Bowie fans, the everpresent stream of wall-to-wall music interspersed with continually interruptive interviews can get repetitive and feel exhaustive, like an over-extended music video, where it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by a frenetic onslaught of avant garde editing techniques that come fast and furious, where there’s really no relief, and while Bowie is portrayed as a self-reflective person, Morgen allows no contemplative moments for viewers.  There is an antidote, however, if you remove the sound and watch as a silent film (Sacrilege!), the stream-of conscious imagery is endlessly fascinating, changing the entire perspective, drawing attention to the filmmaker himself and his cinematic vision, where you can actually appreciate the work as a surreal dreamlike fantasia and not a music video.  For those who already love Bowie, this film is hugely successful, literally swimming in artistic flair, and for those who are not, this will not likely change your mind, despite a memorial tribute from Rolling Stone asserting Why David Bowie Was the Greatest Rock Star Ever.  There is one standout song, however, coming more than an hour into the film, which Bowie wrote with Brian Eno, Moonage Daydream [David Bowie - 'Heroes' (live)] - YouTube (4:56), a darkly beautiful love anthem drenched in melancholic irony that was featured in Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), at first sounding like the Velvet Underground’s I'm Waiting For The Man - YouTube (4:39) with Lou Reed, a lifelong friend and collaborator, symbolizing Berlin in the 70’s when it was a divided city, living on the edge of despair, yet not succumbing to that despair, instead offering a unifying hope, almost like a prayer, where the slowly building intensity of the vocal to a fever pitch epitomizes the young lovers’ growing sense of desperation.    

Written, directed, edited, and produced by Morgen, the immersive nature of the film is significant, released during a worldwide health pandemic when no one was attending live concerts, so this opens up a communal experience for viewers that had been heavily restricted.  Many of those conducting interviews with Bowie are befuddled by the man behind the image, as they attempt to define or pigeonhole him, but he remains an elusive spirit whose honesty can be refreshing, as oftentimes, especially early in his career, he’s still searching to understand himself.  This is Morgen’s third pop music documentary, following the Rolling Stones film CROSSFIRE HURRICANE (2012) and his take on the tragic trajectory of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain in MONTAGE OF HECK (2015), a film where the music never seems to stop, even during the interview segments, never really providing an overview of his life and career, as those can be found in Francis Whately’s television documentaries DAVID BOWIE: FIVE YEARS (2013) and DAVID BOWIE: THE LAST FIVE YEARS (2017), instead it accentuates certain phases of interest to the director, hoping to provide personalized insights.  Bowie hated the artificiality of Los Angeles, so in the mid 70’s he moved there for two years and kept a creative journal while living anonymously, soaking up the cultural differences, yet remained relatively reclusive, acknowledging that America filled spaces in his imagination that England couldn’t, where he felt like a “a foreign body,” explaining “If you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area.”  However, he quickly felt artistically burned out and in the grips of cocaine addiction, moving to West Berlin after searching for the most uninviting city, yet he left an indelible impression, forging new musical paths by working with Brian Eno, employing various experimental sound inventions that included ambient music and the William S. Burroughs cut-up technique.  There’s a theatrical quality to Bowie, who’s been in several films, including Tony Scott’s erotic vampire film THE HUNGER (1983) and Nagisa Ōshima’s prisoner of war drama MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE (1983), while also performing theatrically in the lead role of John Merrick in Bernard Pomerance’s The Elephant Man in 1980, making him the first rock star to perform in a Broadway play, appearing onstage with Tina Turner in a surprise visit during her Private Dancer Tour, even making a Pepsi commercial together, evolving into an iconic stadium pop star while living a secluded life, all assembled into a collective mix of clips interspersed throughout the film, never spelling things out directly, allowing viewers to decipher what they’re hearing and seeing.  Bowie was an inveterate world traveler, living in a nomadic state, refusing to buy a house, always on the move like Dean Moriarty and Sal Paradise in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, preferring ships or buses, and especially loved trains, as he had a fear of flying, generally accompanied by a collection of books, yet the aching loneliness of this solitary experience allowed him to become an acute observer of life in obscure places.  A recurring motif is watching Bowie ride neon-soaked escalators in a Singapore mall while wandering endlessly through markets and temples and red light districts, like an explorer in a travelogue film, becoming a stranger in a strange land during the Southeast Asia leg of the Serious Moonlight tour in 1983, Bowie and the Fluorescent Escalators – Ricochet YouTube (3:48), yet we also watch him splatter paint onto a giant canvas on the floor in a Jackson Pollack style.  While there’s a latent obsession with the trailblazing aspect of his 70’s bombastic glam rock period, where the enigmatic title comes from a recording made during his Ziggy Stardust phase, with suggestions this may be his greatest pop culture achievement, there’s only just an inkling of interest in his later career, when he appears happier and more at ease with himself, with only a brief nod to his marriage to Somalian model Iman Mohamed Abdulmajid, while avoiding his death altogether from a prolonged illness with liver cancer, coming just days after releasing his final album.  Offering unique insights into the creative process behind so many of his music videos, songs, stage shows, and theater shows, where his career, and his identity, can be defined by constantly reinventing himself, this film is a celebratory tribute that nostalgically looks back exploring the life of a shapeshifting artist while also merging with the director’s own fascination with sound and picture and montage.   

Note

While not in the film, it’s important to point out the different versions of Bowie’s song I’m Deranged, written with Brian Eno, playing over the opening and closing credit sequences of David Lynch’s LOST HIGHWAY (1997), Lost Highway by David Lynch - Opening Credits YouTube (2:34).  And let’s not forget Seu Jorge singing Bowie songs in Portuguese in Wes Anderson’s THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU (2004), The Life Aquatic - Seu Jorge - YouTube (4:19), Greta Gerwig twirling, dancing, and leaping through the streets of New York to the music of Bowie’s Modern Love in Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha (2012), Frances Ha [2013] - Dance in the street - YouTube (1:08), also one must mention this unforgettable rendition of Bowie’s signature song before a jam-packed Wembley Stadium in London, David Bowie - Heroes (Live Aid, 1985) YouTube (6:50).