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I finally forced myself to sit through all of
"Ma Vie En Rose," this weekend. The film was, for me,
so intensely personal that it was very hard to watch. Tears
welled up several times. Imagine watching a film in which someone
revealed to you (and anyone else who might be watching) every
intimate, embarrassing thought you ever had that you thought was
known only to you.
But more than catching the essential dilemma of
a transgendered genetic male, this film was remarkable for how it
got into the head of a child and made you see things through a
child's eyes and imagination. Few, very few films really
accomplish that.
The story was also fair to the family who, in
the hands of a lesser writer and director, might have been
portrayed either as relentlessly oppressive ogres or as
long-suffering martyrs (please, don't cast Sally Field as Mum in
the American remake - for that matter, don't do a remake). The
film, in my view, showed that this is an even more perplexing
dilemma for the family than for the transgendered person.
This is the sort of film that could have only
been made in Europe - it has such heart that you know somebody
had to spill their guts to write the script. That takes a hundred
times the courage it takes to write a typical American flick.
Btw, the visuals of Ma Vie en Rose had such an
"Oz-like" quality to them that it occurred to me to
turn off the sound and play Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon
along with ;-)
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