XXY

I Just saw this new movie from the Argentinian cinema and found it deeply moving.

To me the idea of showing the inner struggle of an hermaphrodite with such a profound respect was a First. I never saw a movie treating this issue before --not at all in a Hollywood product!!-- and never so seriously and delicately.

Not only his/her struggle, but both his/hers parents. His/hers parents lived 15 years (the child's present age as shown in the movie) of sheer torment. What could they do about the problem? Where could they go to talk about it without raising eyebrows? - the world can be terribly cruel with anyone "different".

I remember only one scene with an albino hermaphrodite in a frontal nude scene in a Fellini movie -"Satyricon"- But there, it was used only as shock value. A freak case. Not here! This is a very humane movie, very tender in it's treatment of a very delicate problem (Could it be because the director is a woman?).

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

And the beautiful, truly beautiful ending! in the past a character like this one was always killed at the end: It drowned, it fell in an abyss. It perished, no matter how. It did not have the right to live.

It seems that now we have grown to be more mature somehow; in this movie, not only the hermaphrodite refuses to be operated on, to become either a man or a woman, NO! she decides to remain what she is: A naturally born human being with BOTH SEXES. And really...Why not?? Great film! great, GREAT film!

*END OF SPOILERS*

Technically though, I found a couple of faults: Although my mother tongue is Spanish, after a while I had to put the subtitles on, since almost all the actors (Mainly Ricardo Darin -the father of the hermaphrodite) go through the movie mumbling their words, sort of like Marlon Brando used to do thanks to the Actor's Studio's Method, and I was missing part of the dialogue (My hearing is excellent, but the straining wasn't worth it, and I was using headphones!); also they talked in extremely low voices, so, since the sea rumble or the rain noise are on most of the time as background sound (They are on location in an Uruguayan beach town), they drowned the actors voices most of the time.

I imagine the director wanted to give the feeling of casual, nonchalant conversation, fine, but you can come up with a more efficient sound quality employing other ways, not as it was done in this movie (Maybe they didn't have enough budget, or the sound wasn't top drawer, I don't know).

The other fault was the length of some scenes..., it looked like one of those old 60s movies from Sweden, where the actors were shown on profile, looking to the right into the horizon for two full minutes without speaking a word or moving at all.

But these two faults are minor really. This film makes you think about the very wrong and terribly unjust ways of contemporary society when looking at minorities. Excellent all actors and a superb director.

As everybody knows, adolescence is a roller coaster ride for the seven odd years from 12 to 19 (and sometimes even longer). Add the premise of being a 15 year old Hermaphrodite,and things can get even scarier. This is the story of a 15 year old Argentine girl,living on the Argentine coastline. A visit from another couple,with their 15 year old son makes this for an unusual,but sensitively played drama that in the hands of another director would/could be easily turned into crass exploitation. Granted,there is sexual experimentation aplenty,but this is handled with taste (don't expect a John Waters-esquire treatment here---not like in Pink Flamingo's,anyway). This is a well written,directed,filmed & acted out drama about mature subject matter. No rating here (it wasn't submitted for an rating from the M.P.A.A.),but contains some very mature subject matter,including a rather uncomfortable sexual harassment scene).

Adapted from a short story by Sergio Bizzio, XXY is the story of Alex (Inés Efron), a fifteen year old intersexual born with genitalia characteristic of both male and female. Argentine director Lucia Puenzo, daughter of Luis Puenzo who directed The Official Story, though tackling a delicate subject has avoided sensationalism while crafting a deeply touching and poignant coming of age story about the pain of growing up without truly knowing who you are. Though minimal amounts of dialog are used and there are long periods of silence, XXY does not come across as being pretentious or strained. Rather it captures the uncertainty and awkwardness of teens with authenticity and awareness.

Alex's father Kraken (Ricardo Darin) is a marine biologist who wants to protect his daughter/son from the stares and questions of society and moves the family to a remote seaside residence in Uruguay. Now that Alex has become a teen, he wants to give her the right to choose whether to lead her life as a man or a woman while emphasizing that he loves her unconditionally and thinks she is "perfect" exactly the way she is and the way she is not. Alex seems to have made her choice by stopping the hormones that have kept her female but her mother Suli (Valeria Bertuccelli) pressures her to decide about surgery by inviting friends Ramiro and Erika (German Palacios and Carolina Pelleritti) from Buenos Aires to stay with them, one of whom is a doctor who specializes in plastic surgery, her invitation being on the pretext that she wants Ramiro to get to know Alex.

Along for the ride is their shy teenage son Alvaro, brilliantly portrayed by Martin Piroyansky who knows nothing of Alex's condition and has some sexual issues of his own. What is not anticipated, however, is that Alex and Alvaro will form an immediate emotional connection, though neither will admit it to the other, and in a beautifully controlled scene, have a sexual encounter with Alex revealing herself by playing the male role. Though the encounter was witnessed by her father, he is not judgmental only perplexed about what his proper role should be in Alex's life, and discusses Alex with a gas station owner who had to make a similar choice in his teens.

Kraken's emotional support stands in sharp contrast with Ramiro. In one of the most gut-wrenching scenes in a long time, Ramiro is unspeakably cruel to Alvaro, telling him that he lacks talent and that, with dripping irony, he is glad he is attracted to Alex since he was beginning to think he was gay. Water symbolism runs throughout the film – Kraken, who is named after a mythological sea monster, rescues turtles from poachers and removes their shell to discover their sex. Alex has an aquarium filled with hermaphroditic clownfish and a collection of dolls with attached penises attached. None of this symbolism, however, adds much to a story that is told with subtlety and great sensitivity.

Winner of the Critics Week Grand Circle Award at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, XXY features an extraordinary performance by Inés Efron who manages to build empathy for her character while making Alex a symbol of all adolescents' search for acceptance. Director Lucia Puenzo has said that after reading the short story by Bizzio that she "couldn't get it out of her head". A film of haunting beauty and compassion that says that every human being deserves to be loved for who they are regardless of gender, physical deformity, or sexual orientation, it will also be hard to get out of your head.

First there was Sofia Coppola, who made her directorial debut with the all but safe Virgin Suicides. Now Lucìa Puenzo, another in-bred filmmaker (her father is one of Argentina's most famous directors), has chosen an even more uncomfortable subject for her first steps behind the camera, and the result is a beautiful, bold and oddly touching picture.

Much of the movie's power derives from the astounding central performance by Inés Efron, who plays the troubled Alex, a 15-year old girl living in a village by the sea in Uruguay. It was her father, marine biologist Kraken (Ricardo Darìn) who decided to move there from Buenos Aires, and for a good reason: his daughter suffers from a rare and frankly embarrassing medical condition, the nature of which is hinted at in the title. It has already caused her to break her best friend's nose, and more problems will come as the family receives an unexpected visit from a surgeon and his young son Alvaro, with whom Alex embarks on an awkward relationship.

XXY tackles a delicate issue with great care, allowing both sides to speak their mind (although the movie isn't really about taking sides) and addressing the problem without trivializing it. Most surprisingly, it doesn't get as explicit as other films with similar themes (Boys Don't Cry comes to mind), except for the wonderfully shocking climax (in every sense) of one of Alex's encounters with Alvaro. It's a scene of unexpected poignancy, especially considering the contrast between the brutality of that moment and Alex's visible vulnerability. Therein lies the movie's core: it is not a traditional teen story, nor is it a conventional issue picture; at its center we have a person who is seemingly unable to accept herself, as well as her complex bonds with other people.

It is those connections that the director analyzes with startling precision in the second half, with particular attention to the way the two kids relate with their fathers (close-ups are very important here, as the devastated looks on the great actors' faces act as a counterbalance to the seductive landscape). And there lies the biggest shock: Alex and Kraken, despite the difficulties they're going through, manage to get closer, while Alvaro's apparently perfect life is shattered in a brief, bleak lesson of cynicism from his old man. As a matter of fact, that might be too much: that scene is just a little too cold, too cruel to really feel at home in the picture. However, the rest of XXY holds up in an almost perfect way, with its strong story, affecting cast and an open ending which, despite being frustrating at first, makes perfect sense: this kind of story cannot really end.

I will not get into any comments on the movie despite the medical facts. I think other people can do and have done this better than me. I just want to say I loved this movie and for who is interested here are some facts why the story is fictional:

Alex seems to have both genders. She seems to have both - a vagina and a penis - and the doctors already noticed that before she was born. That is referred to as real hermaphroditism, but it is actually not a part of Klinefelter's syndrome, which is a so-called "pseudo-hermaphroditism". All children with an extra X chromosome in addition to XY (so 47,XXY-children) are BOYS. The Sex-determing Region of Y is making them develop to boys. So they won't have nor a vagina nor a uterus and until puberty they are usually not even diagnosed.

Boys with Klinefelter's Syndrome usually consult a doctor because of insufficient growth of the testes in puberty. Some get gynecomastia (breast development in boys) and stay with a high voice. The penis and hair usually develop normal.

So as long as they don't have a genetic abnormality on their Y-chromosome they won't be real hermaphrodites, which is a really rare condition anyway and comes along with the normal Karyotypes 46,XX or 46,XY in most cases.

Anyway it is a great movie! Enjoy!