LLGFF: Gender Performance

Diane Torr and participants in Man for a Day

These three features are all concerned with gendered behaviour in disparate ways, reflecting Diane Torr's contention that gender is a performance.

Katarina Peters' Man for a Day presents Diane Torr's titular week-long workshop, staged in Berlin with participants cast by the director (this fact emerged in the Q&A), which rather changes how one views it. As drama it's brilliant, with clear narrative arcs as the women proceed through the stages of learning how to be men for a day. But, just before it gets to the big reveal and they take to the streets as men, it cuts to Torr and her daughter visiting Italy, and we never actually see how the women got on. Was this footage not sufficient dramatic? Were the men not able to pass? It's not clear.

What is quite interesting is how some of the participants react to their week-long "training" to be men (which involves stuffing cotton down their trousers, "owning" the floor with their steps, and projecting their voices into the ground). Susann, the beauty queen, takes to being a man so much, she continues in character afterward, even visiting a strip club with one of her new-found friends--and making out together "man on man". Hmmm. Peters acknowledged afterward that the strip club scene was staged, although Susann and chum requested the visit. Another woman, who works in politics, felt she was able to assert herself better and work smarter as a result of the workshop. So, it does seem that the workshops, dependent though they are on presenting very stereotyped masculine behaviour, do allow women to expand their behavioural options, as Torr suggests is her goal.

Unfortunately, very extreme masculine behaviour can easily spill over into violence, as is shown in Taboo Yardies, Selena Blake's documentary on attitudes to the LGBT community in Jamaica. To say it's not very queer-friendly is an understatement: beatings, rapes and everyday abuse are commonplace, and most participants are shown disguised. Interestingly, Blake also interviews many diasporic Jamaicans in New York and finds that many have left Jamaica just to live openly without fear. They love the country, but hate the bigotry. Other Jamaicans who are able to travel also say they love visiting NYC, just so that they can be themselves. There is rather depressing footage of the then-PM of Jamaica, Bruce Golding, comparing the demands for LGBT rights legislation with demands for protection of--wait for it--incest and bestiality. That old trope. And there is truly heartbreaking footage of a disguised Jamaican lesbian describing how she self-harms and just wants to die, so desperate is her situation.

The comments by so-called "experts" are not so illuminating. The sexologists seem locked into very old-fashioned notions of gender, while another speaker makes a passing reference to "300 years of colonialism" as an explanation for why public displays of same-sex affection might enrage Jamaican men. But, this idea is never developed. Nobody can say from where exactly the taboo emerged, or why it remains so fixed, other than tradition and religious affiliation.

On the other side of the gender normative coin, She Male Snails is a curious Swedish art film directed by Ester Martin Bergsmark, in which two "Boy Hag Ladies" take a very long bath together, while one of them recollects how they met and what they mean to each other. This is interspersed with baffling vignettes which mostly take place in the woods and may suggest that true freedom is only found in an enchanted forest of the imagination. Or possibly not.

By the 60-minute mark, I was rather concerned that the protagonists, still bathing, might be getting wrinkled, while there was still no clear narrative or action developing. In the end, nothing much happened, except for a delightful closing scene in which a bunch of gender-queered folk welcomed a newcomer onto their island for a picnic. Why couldn't the rest of the film been like that?

Rebellious Teens: Persepolis and XXY

Persepolis dir Marjane Satrapi/Vincent Paronnaud
XXY dir Lucia Puenzo

Two films about rebellious teens who know their own minds, much to the dismay of society and consternation of their families.

Marjane Satrapi's comic volumes of her life growing up in Iran and eventual exile to France have been brilliantly translated to animated film, voiced by an array of French stars such as Catherine Deneuve and Danielle Darrieux, in Persepolis.

The tone is mostly comic, as the lively, opinionated Satrapi finds her independent spirit smothered by the increasingly restrictive regime in her homeland. The pop culture references are a hoot--the scene with black marketeers on the street offering Iron Maiden and "Jichael Mackson" cassettes is especially funny. It isn't easy worshipping Bruce Lee and pursuing one's aims as a prophet while war rages and the country moves from dictatorship to religious state.

Satrapi is sufficiently outspoken as a teenager that her sympathetically portrayed parents send her to a lycée in Vienna for her own safety. The sequence in which she loses her way and falls into a depression is unexpectedly grave and moving. Her acid-tongued grandmother acts as a moral compass, demanding young Marjane stay true to her Iranian identity while wittily disparaging those who fall short of her expectations.

The film offers a potted history of Iran in the 20th century, with descriptions of torture and disastrous foreign policy interventions sitting side-by-side with disastrous love affairs and frightening encounters with religious extremists. Finding herself an outsider at home and abroad, Satrapi must decide where her future lies, eventually opting for France, where she lives to this day.

XXY is a whole different exploration of otherness, set on an island in Uruguay where an Argentine family has gone to escape "idiots" only to find themselves besieged by a whole new set of same. This unwelcome attention is directed at their offspring, 15-year-old Alex, intersexed and disenchanted with taking medication to remain acceptably feminine.

Alex is the only one who talks sense in this ponderously paced drama, declaring,"I am both", when questioned about her (everyone refers to Alex as "she" and Alex never specifies) gender. The adults stand around, engaging in metaphorical handwringing and wondering what to do about this "problem" while Alex gets on with life, reading up on female domination and acting out sexually with a young visitor to the island, Alvaro, whose surgeon father hopes to "correct" Alex's condition.

The scene in which Alex jumps (and humps) Alvaro is certainly an eye-opener and the consequences prove to be revelatory for both of them. By the end of the film I was more concerned with how poor Alvaro would deal with his burgeoning sexuality -- beaten down as he was by a boorish father and a distant mother -- than with Alex's dilemma. Her parents, by contrast, were portrayed as affectionate, protective and well-intentioned, if ineffectual.

The film suffers from slow pacing and some clumsy symbolism--there is much cutting and chopping of flesh--and characters make bald statements that defy subtlety. "It's silly, isn't it? Worrying about what people think" is one comment that hangs in the air. It is also puzzling when a female friend of Alex's appears in a sleepover scene and then disappears without being named. Surely, in an 86-minute film, more time could have been given to this character, a peer who appears comfortable with Alex's identity.

After much ado about nothing, Alex asks: "What if there is no decision to be made?" Indeed.

Persepolis opens on 25 April.
XXY opens on 9 May.

LLGFF: Islam and Queer Identities

This year's festival throws up the thorny subject of Islam and queer identity with a host of films exploring different facets.

Parvez Sharma's documentary A Jihad for Love examines the conflict many queer people feel between their identity as Muslims and their queerness because of the religion's hostility to homosexuality.

From South Africa to Egypt to Iran, many of the subjects feel unsafe even having their faces shown. Some have become refugees, escaping to Turkey or France in order to live their lives. Even there, they face an uncertain future, worrying about their families and unable to resolve a conflict between what they feel and what they have been taught. A gay imam offers some hope, insisting that the Qur'an offers no direct condemnation of homosexuality, but rather a denunciation of behaviour in a specific historical situation. But many queer Muslims still feel unsure.

The Birthday (dirs Negin Kianfar, Daisy Mohr) looks at the interesting situation of transsexuals in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Because Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa on sex changes, these are allowed. And one surgeon goes so far as to proclaim Iran a paradise for transsexuals. But the testimonies offered by two MTFs and one FTM suggest this is not so. Because of conservative thinking, men transitioning to women face a loss of status and their families are often embarrassed. Interestingly, the brother of the FTM says he is happy his sister is becoming a brother as it is less worry for the family. But still legality is a long way from societal understanding.

Love for Share is an intriguing feature on the practice of polygamy in Indonesia. More to the point, the practice of polygyny, as under Islamic law, a man may have more than one wife.

Using intersecting characters, Nia Dinata's film looks at three such situations, including one in which a new wife falls for one of her husband's other wives. The film depicts many comic, even farcical situations, as the wives chafe at their prescribed roles and seek to live their lives with dignity and personal fulfilment. One of the actresses, speaking after the screening, described the situation as "silly" but said many women will accept it out of ignorance or a desire for increased status.