2018's "Girl" not only won the Caméra d'Or and the Queer Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, but actor Victor also won Best Actor in the Un Certain Regard category for his portrayal of Lara.
The movie is based on true events. The protagonist Lara is a 15-year-old girl who dreams of becoming a ballet dancer. She joins the best ballet school with "old age". She practices hard every day until her toes bleed, and the struggle of biological sex and self-awareness is left behind. Where is the blood going?
Calling Lara softly, the sun shines into the bedroom, and the camera is almost always aimed at this girl since the black screen appeared. From the sleeping face before waking up to the pressing of legs on the bed, from the tiptoes to the raised arms, the camera follows the girl from all aspects, steadfast, restrained and full of affection.
The film makes people feel very stable, so stable that I didn't expect this to be the director's debut until I read the introduction. Proper long shots, steady handheld photography, transitions of light and shadow, and, visual repetition. It looks very old, like a textbook, but here, on transgender self-struggles, this formal "banality" just creates a strong sense of stare. This kind of gaze is integrated into the girl's life, the camera will not be very close to Lara, nor very far away from her, almost always maintaining a comfortable distance between people, intimate and not overstepping.
Fragmented plot collages make life in ballet school intertextual with family and hospital. In the morning, I got up laughing with my younger brother, and slowly stretched my muscles on the bed; accompanied by my father and younger brother to the ballet school; in the hospital, I took off the underwear of my skirt and lay on the bed for an examination. The simple scene presents the "speciality" of the protagonist.
The ballet scene is undoubtedly the highlight of the film. Ballet and girls, the two are intertwined in Lara's life. Tear off tape, tap the ground, spin...the ballet scene is repeated. The camera followed Lara with panning and panning, and with the sound of tapping on the ground, and with the arms passing in the air, it rose and fell, amplifying the subtle changes in visual experience. Discontinuous clips within the same scene, in a broken rhythm, outline Lara's willpower, physical exertion, and the emotional surge in her breath. Whether it's a class full of classmates dancing together or a large classroom with only Lara and the tutor after class, the sound of tapping the floor makes people feel pain after watching it. I think the director's goal has been achieved.
After an hour, the film visually shifts from a yellow to a dark red, a tonal shift that hints at a dramatic shift.
For example, at the beginning of the movie, sunlight with the color of salted egg yolk penetrated into the room; when Lara went to the ballet school for an interview, she was also sitting by the window, bright or dark as her body moved. In this yellow-colored scene, Lara is basically with people who support her and help. She often plays with her hair that hangs down, and is close to the bright window. These shots or warm daily life , or the affirmation of others that they are female. Lara in these shots is shy and determined, her beautiful eyes looking tentatively around.
But since Lara took the initiative to approach the boy she liked, dark red always appeared from time to time. A strong orange-red light came from behind, and people had a dark red hue in the shadows. Red clothes, red underwear, red lampshades... From Lara standing next to the dark red curtain at the party and being asked to look at her genitals, to her father's sudden entry into the room causing conflict to erupt, from frowns and blood in dance class, Go to Lara to find the boy you like, kiss and touch. Lara under the red lens is the object of attention. The other is not malicious, but the pain of oppression is accumulating step by step.
The long shot before self-castration leaves Lara for the first time for a long time, moving silently around the room, the flat, still, and suddenly disappearing gaze makes one feel like something is passing - at the end picking up the scissors is dull Woo, the pain sent chills down my spine. While the act of self-castration is an artistic expression of cinema, the pain of wanting to castrate is real.
Self is a very complicated issue. It is as funny as Lu Xiucai, who used the concept of self to kill villains in "Wulin Gaiden", as deep as a philosophical meditation on "Who am I?".
In this film, Lara's way of facing herself is staring. She always looks at herself in the mirror. Watching while wearing earrings, watching with undressed, watching in underwear, watching while sitting in the bathroom... Lara stared at herself over and over again, and the visual repetition was that Lara was staring at herself. But staring is not just staring, what is Lara thinking when she looks at herself in the mirror? She doesn't want her original genitals, she doesn't want a flat, open chest, she wants to be a girl, she wants to have the same physical structure and characteristics as other girls. Body disgust and intense longing roared in the calm gaze. Probably pick up the scissors to castrate yourself because the inner waves always need to rely on the extreme behavior of externalization to be excreted.
In the end, Lara sat on the hospital bed and stared at herself reflected in the glass, and she was ready to face it. The pain she had been crushed into had been "spoken out loud" in the form of self-castration.
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