Spoiler free
Forgive any typo, but the tears are still clouding my view.
Let’s say it like it is: this is not THE film about transgender issue, it is not free of errors or carelessness and in some cases is a bit of an approximation.
But it’s a great movie, and now I’ll try to tell you why it would be worthwhile to see it and keep all those precious questions that overcome you once you are getting up from your cinema chair, while the soundtrack accompanies the closing credits.
The Danish Girl is the (true) story of Lili Elbe, a transgender woman born in 1882 in Vejle, Denmark, and the first in the world to have undergone sex reassignment surgery.
Lili was born Einar Mogens Wegener, a landscape painter who in 1904 married Gerda Gottlieb, also a painter but specialized in illustrations.
Always prone to wearing women’s clothes, since 1912 (when the couple moved to Paris) she begins to go out in public dressed as a woman, claiming to be Einar’s sister (the cousin in the film).
Gerda makes Lili her favourite model and this helps her in her quest for success in the world of painting.
When she reaches a point in her life where she can no longer give in to compromise, Lili decides to undergo several operations to surgically remove the male sexual organs and rebuild the female ones.
Although this is a true story, to reveal the ending would simply be a spoiler that’s unnecessary for the purpose of this article, so I’ll leave you with the curiosity, inviting you to go see the film.
But we were saying, if it’s not a perfect film, then why should you still go watch it?
First of all, because it’s not a movie that is constantly focused on the protagonist.
The story of Lili has certainly had a major impact on the life of Lili, but not only.
Transsexualism is a private matter, but doesn’t exclude relationships, which of course are influenced and influence the process.
It’s Gerda herself who reminds Lili: “not everything revolves around you”.
The coming out (of whatever kind) of a person has an effect on the people around her and it would be foolish not to admit this. Who’s next to someone who is going through a similar transition has a lot of questions and sometimes suffers. We have to say that it’s normal to feel certain emotions, we must give those who are around us a chance as well to express their feelings, if they are listenable (“it’s not true, you’re not feeling these things”, “I do not accept you”, “you’re sick and you have to get some treatment” are not feelings – just to be clear).
Second, Eddie Redmayne’s lines make clear a reality that is normally very complex to explain and to understand: “I do not have to undergo radiation, there’s nothing wrong with me”. Einar does not have a chemical imbalance, he’s not homosexual and he’s not schizophrenic. Einar is “simply” a woman in a man’s body.
To impose on him (or we should say on HER) wearing male clothing will not influence his condition, because his condition is dictated from the outside:
“It doesn’t matter what I wear. When I dream, it’s Lili’s dreams I’m dreaming of”.
In the film Lili denies Einar and his body, and she even got to the point of saying that Einar is dead.
In reality this is a partial view.
Sometimes it’s true, there is a rejection of one’s body that leads transgender people to feel discomfort by simply looking at themselves in the mirror. But many times they don’t feel like they’re in the “wrong body” (otherwise it wouldn’t make sense why many decide not to undergo surgery), but feel a misalignment between how they perceive themselves and how others perceive them.
To put it simply: I feel like a woman, but I see that people relate to me as a man, and this happens because my body – which also feel myself – has male characteristics. Moreover, Einar cannot die, because Einar and Lili aren’t two different people. Transsexualism has nothing to do with multiple personalities.
Overall, it’s a complex subject, and – as mentioned before – it comes with a series of questions to which one cannot answer in a 120-minute film.
The question of roles is always present visually in the film – the masculine and the feminine.
Gerda reminds us of it, as she is painting the portrait of a gentleman: “For a man it is difficult to be observed by a woman. Women are used to it, of course, but for a man to be subject of the look of a woman is destabilizing. Nevertheless I think it is nice, once he gives in”.
And she is the one telling us that she had made the first move with Einar, she was the one who kissed him (HER).
It’s her to propose to her husband to begin to dress in women’s clothes, and she’s not shocked the first time he (SHE) shows up wearing her nightgown.
She is taking care of Einar, of Lili. She is the strongest figure of the entire film, liberating herself of stereotypes every time she throws her scarf over her shoulder.
Lili is an unusual woman as much as Gerda.
Because there are different ways of being a woman, ways that go beyond social conventions or our sexual characteristics.
For all these reasons, The Danish Girl is a film that does not close one’s mind, but rather opens up a world of reflections, questions and new awareness.
It is a film that should be seen and above all that needs to be discussed, because if it had the merit of bringing the transgender issue back on the table, it’s then up to us to keep it on that table.
So let’s do it.
