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galadriel-loth
Reviews
Tiresia (2003)
Harrowing, some Inaccuracies re: TG
***SPOILERS***
Very loosely based on the Greek myth of Tiresias, Tiresia is a non-op transgender woman and prostitute. The plot is really harrowing. Tiresia is forced into prostitution by her own brother, kidnapped by an "admirer" who is apparently a rose-loving priest, tied up, isolated, blinded by her captor having her eyes punctured with a sharp instrument, dumped and left for dead, nursed back to health (albeit permanently blind) by a young woman who eventually turns out to be an opportunist, and finally killed by the apparently-selfsame priest. Through all of this vile treatment, she tries to make the best of things. In return for her inhumane treatment, the gods grant her a gift. I don't feel this movie had much to say. It just seems to be a catalog of atrocities visited on a human being. There are some inaccuracies concerning the transgender experience - or at least she is not typical of transgender women - in that I don't believe even a blinded transgender woman would wish to have her hair cut or wish to discontinue hormones and live as male or even androgyne. It is not clear that transgender Tiresia is in fact transsexual per se, but she is constantly referred to as transsexual. (She is not a transvestite though, since she takes hormones.) The movie is haunting, and it does not demean transgender people and Tiresia will be a sympathetic character to many, if only because she is a victim who, mostly, refuses to let this define her, a person who tries to adapt.
Écoute le temps (2006)
Atmospheric, slow, supernatural
After her mother's death, Charlotte, a sound engineer living in Paris, travels to her mother's cottage in the damp grey forested French countryside. Her mother was a clairvoyant who gave tarot readings to locals. At the cottage, Charlotte begins to untangle the recent events surrounding her mother's life and her death.
The pace is slow by American standards, and this may irritate some. But what would one expect of a decent French movie which tends to focus as much on characters as on action. Émilie Dequenne (Charlotte) and the rest of the cast do a fine acting job. The thriller drips with atmospheric cinematography and has a beautiful, rustic, almost Gothic flavor. It is genuinely frightening in places.
Up the Junction (1968)
Social Commentary and Period Piece
My goodness, this brought back memories. I grew up in London in the 1960s and also lived in areas like this up in the Midlands. The movie is a wonderful nostalgic period piece for those of us who knew this world, peripherally or centrally. But the social commentary is timeless. The central character, Polly, yearns for real earthy genuine living and crosses the bridge from upper-class Chelsea to working-class Clapham to experience freedom from upper class social mores and pretension. The world she finds there is indeed real, genuine and earthy. But she has the choice to enter this world or leave it, unlike most of the people who were born into it. And does she fully understand the world she has entered?