Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.05.2019, Blaðsíða 34

Girl
An exploration of longing and pain
Words: Andie Fontaine Photos: Film stills
Movie
‘Girl’ is screening with English
subtitles at Bío Paradís. Find
showtimes and tickets online.
‘Girl’, a film by Lukas Dhont and
written by Dhont and Angelo Tijs-
sens, tells in many ways two sto-
ries. The first story is that of Lara,
a 15-year-old transgender girl with
aspirations—to become a profes-
sional ballet dancer, to recieve
hormone replacement therapy and
bottom surgery, and to be loved
and accepted. The second story is
that of gender dysphoria, an expe-
rience that many, but not all, trans
people frequently experience:
generally speaking, it’s a feeling
of distress and anxiety stemming
from one’s birth-assigned sex not
aligning with one’s gender. In fact,
violence against the human body
is a recurring element in this film,
at times to a degree that is painful
to watch.
It is important here to point out
that Dhont is not trans, and that
neither is the actor who plays Lara,
Victor Polster. This and other de-
tails of the film have raised criti-
cism from trans and queer people.
At the same time, it’s also impor-
tant to point out that Nora Mon-
secour, a trans woman on whose
life the film is fictionally depict-
ed, consulted with the filmmak-
ers throughout its development
and has repeatedly defended the
director’s choices, both in terms
of casting and directorial choic-
es, telling the Hollywood Report
last December that the film “tells
my story in a way that doesn’t lie,
doesn’t hide. To argue that Lara’s
experience as trans is not valid
because Lukas is cis or because we
have a cis lead actor offends me”.
As a trans person myself, I’m
not about to tell another trans per-
son that they are wrong for being
satisfied with how their story is
told. To experience that kind of
satisfaction is rare, and we alone
have the final say in how our lived
experiences are represented. At
the same time, Monsecour rightly
points out in the same interview
that ‘Girl’ is not a representation of
all transgender experiences, and
this is important to bear in mind
when watching the film.
Hope and violence
The common thread in ‘Girl’ is a
wave of optimism and violence
against the human body. These
forms of violence oscillate be-
tween those exclusive to Lara’s
trans journey, and harm that
stems from her other aspirations.
Acceptance and love from her
peers is fraught by
a cruel slapping
game between her
and more popular
girls and a humil-
iating attempt at
closeness w ith
a b o y. A d u l t s
around her ex-
press worry about
the harm she may
end up inflicting
on her body in
trying to learn to go en pointe in
ballet a few years later than most
girls.
But it is the spectre of harm to-
wards her own body as a part of her
trans experience that is especially
painful to watch, probably most
of all if you are a trans person who
experiences dysphoria. She tapes
down her genitals, causing a nasty
infection. She is warned in graph-
ic detail everything that could go
wrong during and after bottom
surgery. And the film’s climactic
act of self-harm, towards the end
of the story, is positively horrify-
ing.
Where the camera stops
Throughout all this, there are
brighter moments. The relation-
ship between Lara and her father
is tender and supportive. There
are also more subtle moments,
such as when a couple expecting
a child blithely declare the child’s
gender, the camera lingering on
Lara as we watch her consider
these two parents already assign-
ing gender to a child not yet born.
Much of the telling of the story
rests upon where Dhont lets his
camera lie the longest: a steady fo-
cus of what feels like an eternity
on Lara’s face immediately after
she is deliberately misgendered
by her younger brother speaks
volumes about the hurt and anger
that can evoke. There is frequently
intense focus on Lara’s body that
at times borders on voyeuristic,
when it is clear the director wants
the viewer to take this moment in
and not look away, no matter how
painful it is to watch.
These directorial choices are
very familiar. Trans stories told
in film are often stories of pain,
physical and emotional. Undoubt-
edly, the trans
experience itself
can be painful.
But it can also
be an experience
of euphoria, joy,
hope, optimism
and love. Unfor-
t unately, such
stories in fi lm
are few and far
b e t w e e n , a n d
trans people who
watch this film are very likely to
be reminded of this fact every
time harm comes to Lara, just as
they are likely to recall each time
a cis actor was cast to play a trans
person on screen. Cisgender view-
ers of ‘Girl’ would also do well to
remember that, although Monse-
cour herself is satisfied with how
her story is told, her story is not
the story of all trans people, as she
herself emphasises.
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Dark times and brighter moments
“The common
thread in ‘Girl’ is a
wave of optimism
and violence
against the hu-
man body.”
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