Sciamma's Tomboy Gets One Week in Chicago

In the only country that's taken Transsexualism off the books as a mental disorder, rising French Writer/Director Celine Sciamma (Water Lilies) chose a ten-year-old transgender boy, Mikael (Zoé Heran) for the subject of her second fetaure film Tomboy. Belgian film Ma Vie En Rose (My Life in Pink, 1997) was one of the first to dramatize the story of a transgender pre-adolescent boy who dreams of growing up to be a woman. Telling the reverse story, Tomboy returns to Chicago after its premiere at the 2011 Chicago International Film Festival. GOTR was finally able to take a look at the film prior to its one-week theatrical run (Rocket Releasing) at the Music Box Theatre this Friday, Jan 27 through Feb 2nd.
 
Skinny and puny as he is, new boy-in-town Mikael (known to his family as Laure) doesn't let other boys push around his little six-year-old sister Jeanne (Malonn Lévana), my favorite character next to the adorable unconditionally loving father (Mathieu Demy). Based on first impressions, anyone would assume Mikael is a boy from the way Sciamma presents him as do the other neighborhood boys and girl, Lisa (Jeanne Disson), Mikael's love interest. Unlike Todd Solondz sexually active pubescent girls in Welcome to the Doll House (1995) and Palindromes (2004), Lisa is a very mild-tempered girl who likes to lead the way in romantic terms, but she and Mikael only kiss. Mikael gets many chances to prove he is "man enough" by playing soccer and Capture the Flag. During a game of "Truth or Dare," Mikael trades gum with Lisa and the boys hoot and holler. He spits, struts, and poses as he thinks a boy might. The first time we see Mikael physically contradict his male appearance is when he gets out the bathtub fully nude and fully ashamed of his female parts; he's already body conscious at his age, even when no one's around.
 
Sciamma succinctly visualizes the momentary peace that a child sexual minority has before being publicly humiliated or violated by his peers. There's a moment in the woods after Mikael's true sex is discovered where Lisa is threatened by being called a lesbian, so she publicly undresses Mikael in front of the boys in their group to prove she isn't "degueulasse;" that's French for disgusting. It's difficult to decipher what motivates Mikael's pregnant mother (Sophie Cattani) to scold him for pretending to be a boy when she finds out he's done it again (it's assumed the family may have moved because of prior incidents). She explains that she doesn't mind him pretending, but that he has to stop fooling others into believing him, something he'll do all his life anyway.
 
The camera's level is cleverly kept at the children's height, setting us up to viscerally identify with Mikael throughout. Tomboy transports this reviewer back to the days of Boy Scout camp swimming tests and shared shower rooms. Self-consciousness came with being thirteen and exacerbated by being gay. Beyond the timeline of the film, the obstacles Mikael will soon face may be greater than his family or friends will ever understand or be able to help him overcome, yet for the time being they help him survive his early life in the hopes that it will get better. The unanswered question in the film is whether Mikael's mom and others can accept him as Mikael, and not as Laure. As the poet/philosopher Kahlil Gibran said your children, "they are with you, yet they belong not to you."

Sciamma's directorial style can be defined as subdued and objective. By leaving out social politics from the picture, the story demands credibility. If these children were adults, would they be discriminating? And what does intolerance mean among children? You might say it's child's play. “Childhood is often referred to as the age of innocence,” Sciamma says, “But I think it’s a time of life full of sensuality and ambiguous emotions. I wanted to portray that.” Today children are coming out and "transitioning" much younger, but it's uncertain whether it’s because of pop culture or a general change in political or social climate. What happens in the family home and between kids on the playground is a more accurate microcosm of what those mean and nasty nine-year-olds are absorbing from family and society.

- Sawyer Lahr