[TOMBOY
screens Friday May 11th at 7:30 pm and Saturday May 12th at 9:45 pm
at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]
Review
by Bob Ignizio
It's hard enough on a kid to move to a
new town and deal with trying to fit in and make friends. On top of
that, Laure (Zoé Héran) is struggling to figure out exactly who she
is and how to be that person. An androgynous ten year old girl, in TOMBOY she
takes the opportunity provided by her fresh start to create a new
identity, that of a boy named Mikael. The ruse works well enough over
the summer, but what will happen when school starts and Mikael has to
go back to being Laure?
The scenes of Laure with her family,
who are loving and accepting, have a genuine warmth that one rarely
sees in the movies. The other kids Laure/Mikael plays with feel real,
too, neither perfect angels nor cruel to the point of caricature the
way we might expect in a similarly themed Hollywood film. There is no
attempt to turn Laure's quest for self acceptance and understanding
into a tragedy in which she must pay an awful price for simply being
who she is ala BOYS DON'T CRY.
Movies like that are important, to be sure, but isn't a film in which
being different, while not without its problems, doesn't have to end
badly just as important?
Writer/director
Céline Sciamma presents all of this in a completely naturalistic,
matter of fact way. Like the films of the Dardene brothers, whose
recent THE KID WITH A BIKE
also dealt with adolescence in a frank and believable manner, TOMBOY
goes for an almost documentary feel. There is no music on the
soundtrack aside from a song Laure/Mikael listens to with his/her
best friend Lisa (Jeanne Disson), and at no point does it feel like
anyone in the film is acting; this could almost be an exceptionally
well shot and edited home movie.
Although
it certainly does deal with gender issues, it bears mentioning that
at no time does TOMBOY
express an explicit “gay agenda”. Laure is like most kids her
age, simply trying to figure out how to be herself. No doubt the film
will speak particularly to the LGBT community, but this is a film
that anyone who ever felt awkward or confused as a kid can relate to,
and hopefully come away from feeling a little better about
themselves. 4 out of 4 stars.
As published on Examiner.com
I'm really glad you liked this as much as I did. I think it's a great piece of film making and teaches a great lesson.
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