herjoch

Hermaphrodites or intersexuals,as they are called today - imho a slightly pejorative expression - are a rare theme in contemporary art; I can only think of Euginides book "Middlesex". The more it is surprising,that "XXY" comes from Argentine, a country not especially prominent in modern gender discourses. But Luisa Puenza impresses in her first feature film with a sensibility and open-mindedness,which will last in the memory for a long time.Puberty is always a difficult state between two identities: Not longer a child and not yet an adult.For the main protagonist Alex that problem doubles,because for her there is also the question of her future sexual identity.Society demands a clear decision.Like the language,which cannot find an expression for his/her existence - the adults alternately speak of "her" or "him" -, so the medicine aims at subjecting everyone to its sexual bipolarity. With witty dialogs and panache the film proclaims the right of being different and of searching one's own sexual niche. But luckily it's far from being dogmatic or didactic.It also understands the position of the parents to give their child a kind of shelter and save it from the confrontation with society.What the film openly criticizes are the operations, or should I better say amputations shortly after birth. The acting is generally fine, especially by Efron("Glue") and Darin.The missing star is the result of little flaws: In some places it too symbolically conceived: It takes place at the coast,which combines land and water; the father working as a marine biologist for sea turtles,whose sex cannot be defined from outside.Such clear hints wouldn't have been necessary. Luckily in our modern advanced society it is for an individual easier possible to define its own "normality" and fight for it, though it will be a lifelong fight.The film shows that in a way encouraging the viewers.

I very much liked the latest films of danish director Susanne Bier - from "Open Hearts" to "After the wedding".So I was waiting for her first American film with a mixture of anticipation and anxiety. Would she be able to keep her style or would it be "hollywoodized"? The answer is : Yes and Yes.It is a typical Bier- drama: Strong,true in its emotions and feelings.Bier has always been interested in the fragility of human life and emotions and so the films deals with loss,fear,hope,helplessness and the search for emotional affection. Again a character has to take responsibility in a new found family. Benicio del Toro and Halle Berry play two persons devastated by the death of a third,who try to stabilize their lives with the help of each other.Luckily the film never succumbs to the easy solution of a conventional romance and stays open till the end.The acting generally is excellent,also in minor roles by Duchovny and Lohman, but it's really del Toro's film.In every pore of his face we can feel the fight of a drug-addict to get clean and stay so. But the film also has its drawbacks.As a member of the Dogma Movement Bier always had a penchant for extreme close-ups.This can be very effective,but here she clearly overdid it.The amount of mostly eyes, cheeks and hands takes away the concentration of the viewer and makes the film in parts too slow.The development of the scenario is sometimes schematic and predictable.The smoothing influence of Hollywood is clearly noticeable.I would have liked to see this film as a danish production, written by Anders Thomas Jensen and played by Mikkelsen and S.B.Knudsen in the main roles.I'm sure the result would be rougher and nearer to life.What also annoyed me was the character of Duchovny: He is way too perfect, a superhuman good samaritan.To resume: For a Hollywood drama the film is quite good, for a Bier film it is slightly disappointing.

A documentary film about dust, a material everyone constantly has to deal with and often likes to curse, doesn't seem to provide a lot of entertainment.But director Hartmut Bitomsky has proved in his earlier films - such as "Reichsautobahn" and "B-52" -,that such "unfilmy" material can lead to interesting and thought-provoking results.So it is also here in an attempt to make the invisible visible.The film treats his subject from all different angles: It shows the beauty of dust,the danger of it, the necessity of it for the creation of galaxies and much more.As always Bitomsky is interested in the importance of his subject to the political and military spheres; and here we get quite surprising informations.A decisive part of course plays the daily Sysiphus-like fight with household-dust, which one can only relocate,but not eliminate.The humor in these scenes reminds of those with Shirley Henderson in Sally Potter's strange film "Yes".Bitomsky has always been an exponent of a more essaistic than academic documentary film-making; so here you find a lot of digressions and side notes.A little weakness: In some scenes in the industrial and technical parts the film would benefit from more detailed explications for non-specialists.At the end of the film we have learned a lot about an industry producing, analyzing,fighting wit and reprocessing dust.An entertaining lesson!