XXY ON DEMANDOctober 20, 2010
Film Movement
On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of hot movies on demand and from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: XXY (Film Movement).
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Androgyny has long been a way for people, particularly those in the arts, to garner attention. From Quentin Crisp to Boy George to k.d. lang, presenting female as male, or vice versa, is a sure way to make people sit up, notice you, and wonder where you got that fabulous hat. But what happens when androgyny isn't about style or statement? When the confluence of male/female is visited upon a single person, is it a cosmic joke or an epic tragedy?
Lucia Penzo's XXY is a shattering meditation on our fluid definitions of gender. What makes someone male or female? Are those our only options? How does gender identity inform sexual preference? Penzo's film raises such questions and forces viewers to reconsider their perception.
XXY is a delicately told coming-of-age story about the pubescent pangs of life as a teenager, as seen from the perspective of a person who represents the universality of the experience, regardless of gender. Not for nothing is she given the name of "Alex."
By appearance, Alex is a fifteen-year-old girl living with her parents in an Argentinian fishing village. When another couple and their son, about Alex's age, come to visit, Alex's condition, hermaphroditism, becomes an issue that has profound and far-reaching effects on both families. Born both male and female, Alex maintains a regimen of hormones and a life of secrecy while navigating the treacherous waters of burgeoning adolescent sexuality.
The visitors in Alex's house include a plastic surgeon who Alex's mother would like to make her daughter her daughter, once and for all. Alex's father, less certain of the long-term effects of surgery on her psyche, grapples with whether his daughter can live her life without committing to being male or female.
Alex becomes fast friends with the visiting Alvaro, but Penzo keeps us guessing about the nature of their relationship. Just friends? Potential lovers? In one of the film's most devastating and graphic scenes, Penzo shows the struggle that Alex endures in her male/female limbo as s/he has her first encounter with Alvaro.
Ines Efron's performance as Alex is startling and heartbreaking. With her lithe, almost boyish frame, mop of hair, and painfully penetrating eyes, she makes her androgyny an integral part of both her strength and her struggle. To watch Efron as Alex attempt to decode the signals she gets from the boys and girls around her is to understand the eternal, internal battle of the sexes that plagues her every moment. At once a carefree teen and an old soul who lacks a self, Alex's pain is palpable, thanks to Efron's amazingly brave acting.
As Alvaro, who can only wish to have the same respect from his father that Alex's has for her, Martin Piroyansky is excellent. Clearly male, but with a softness that belies his masculinity, Alvaro is as confused and adrift as Alex is, with his ideas of manhood muddled by his bullying father.
Argentina submitted XXY as its Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film in 2007 and it's easy to see why. Penzo allows the story to unfold at a deliberate pace, its tempo calibrated for maximum effect. She employs the vast sea abutting Alex's village as a metaphor for both possibility and unseen danger and structures the film to reach a climax that is almost too disturbing to watch, but impossible not to.
Comparisons to Kimberly Peirce's BOYS DON'T CRY are unavoidable, particularly in the act of violence that caps the film, but where Peirce's work had an undercurrent of tension -- what will happen when Brandon's true identity is revealed? -- Penzo's film has no use for that dramatic device; Alex's condition is known by those around her. It's the way she deals with its consequences that gives XXY its potent through-line.
The most electrifying moments in XXY are best left unrevealed, its surprises intact. It's an intimate film perfect to be discovered and discussed at home. Though not the work to be sought out if looking for something lightweight, XXY is a rewarding and deeply satisfying film that maintains its power long after it ends.
Chris Claro is a new contributing writer to On Demand Weekly. He is a former Director of Promotion for Sundance Channel and now works as a writer, producer, and media educator. He is a regular contributor to dvdverdict.com and contributor to the Eyes and Ears section of huffingtonpost.com
XXY is Available On Demand Now
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