XXY directed by Lucia Puenzo

XXY
Argentina (Spanish), 2007
86 min, drama, sexual exploration, intersex, LGBT
Directed by Lucia Puenzo

Trigger warning for discussion of sexual violence. 

Alex, a young intersex person who has been raised female, lives with her mother, Suli, and her father, Nestor, in a small village on the Uruguayan seaside. (The movie uses female pronouns for Alex, so I do too.) When Alex reaches the age of 15, Suli invites some friends from Argentina to visit. What Alex's father doesn't know is that the husband of Suli's friend is a well-known surgeon known for doing sex-change surgeries. Suli has asked them to come as a secretive consultation about Alex.

Alex is uncomfortable with her mother's plan, and has secretly stopped taking the hormone pills prescribed to make her body look more female. When the other family arrives, she confronts their teenage son, Alvaro, asking him to have sex with her. When he refuses, she later imitates it again and they end up having anal sex with Alex as the penetrative partner. Nestor catches a glimpse of this activity. Not knowing how to respond, he seeks the advice of the friendly neighborhood intersex person, who is married and runs a gas station.

Meanwhile, rumors about Alex's unusual genitals (she has both male and female reproductive organs) are starting to spread - started, it seems, by her former best friend. Before the start of the film, she had confronted him about it and broken his nose, leading her to be suspended from school. As Alex is walking along the beach, a group of bullies arrives and assaults her. They pin her down and open her shorts to reveal her genitals. She is only saved from being gang raped by the arrival of her former best friend, who had realized what was happening and arrives to help.

In the aftermath of this sexual assault, Alex must choose whether to tell her story to the police or continue to hide who she is. What will she decide?

Man Facing Southeast directed by Eliseo Subiela

Man Facing Southeast (Hombre Mirando al Sudeste) 
Argentina (Spanish), 1986
105 min, drama, science fiction, suspense
Directed by Eliseo Subiela

An unhappy, disillusioned psychiatrist finds a real challenge when a strange man appears in the mental institution without warning, declaring that he is from another planet and has come here to study humanity. The psychiatrist can find nothing wrong with him, apart from the fact that he says he's an alien. But what if this is actually true? What then?

He decides not to give him any medicines or otherwise give him psychiatric treatment, since this delusion (if it is one) is harmless. When the man's female friend appears, the psychiatrist is confused and wants to get to the bottom of who this apparent alien is. But she says that she doesn't know either. Then, after the psychiatrist falls in love with the woman, she informs him that she is also an alien, but that she has gone astray by focusing too much on the pleasures of the flesh.

This is considered by many to be a classic of South American science fiction. But how does it hold up?

Answer: not very well.

This film demonstrates some of the worst qualities of 1980s movies. The pacing is excruciatingly slow, the voiceovers are unnecessary, the minimal amount of dialogue and long shots of the psychiatrist playing his saxophone (?) do not add anything to the film. Yes, the theory behind this film is interesting - but its execution is not good.

The plot becomes even more confusing when it tries to make a connection between this purported alien and Jesus. So, is he an alien or is he Jesus? Was Jesus an alien? I did not find this question compelling, especially because it was rather clumsily added into the story. It would have been better if the director had stuck to the question of whether he is an alien and what that signifies for the story, rather than bringing in a forced religious angle.

From another angle, the film is an awkward critique of mental health methods in the 1980s. This part makes a bit more sense: since this man isn't hurting anyone, was it really necessary to give him medicines and shock therapy? No! Of course not. But the additional Christ imagery just serves to distract the audience from what could have been an effective critique of mental health care at the time.

All in all, I was disappointed by this classic of Argentinian film. If you want to watch a better movie that raises similar questions, I suggest the classic Man From Earth, in which a college professor may or may not be a caveman who has been alive for thousands of years. And Jesus. And if you want to watch a better Argentinian film, please do watch Nine Queens, a brilliant con film with a crazy twist ending. Just don't waste your time watching this one.

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Nueve Reinas (Nine Queens), directed by Fabian Bielinsky

Source: IMDB

Nueve Reinas 
Argentina (Spanish), 2000
114 min, crime thriller
Director: Fabian Bielinsky

The con artist's big break

Marcos, an experienced con artist, takes on the young, inexperienced Juan as an apprentice for a day. A call from Marcos's estranged sister gives them a lead to a big opportunity - a forger has created an exact duplicate of a rare set of stamps, the Nine Queens, which he was trying to sell to a stamp collecting, exiled diplomat who will leave the country the next day. When Marcos comes into possession of the stamps, he engages Juan's help to pull off the con. But as the difficulty increases and obstacles keep falling in their way, it becomes more and more difficult to determine who, exactly, is conning who.

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Nine Queens