{"id":7357,"date":"2016-02-23T00:58:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-23T04:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/?p=7357"},"modified":"2016-02-23T16:29:42","modified_gmt":"2016-02-23T20:29:42","slug":"weekend-watch-the-danish-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/2016\/02\/23\/weekend-watch-the-danish-girl\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekend Watch: \u201cThe Danish Girl\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Danish Girl\u201d isn\u2019t awful. I kind of thought it would be, for a lot of reasons. Despite a 70% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, most critics who I regularly follow gave it negative reviews, and some publications claimed it wasn\u2019t a good representation of the transgender community. Overall, it seemed to be a very Oscar bait-y type movie to me, and the fact that Eddie Redmayne was the star was only more off-putting. I don\u2019t really mind Redmayne (haven\u2019t seen \u201cLes Mis\u201d yet), but I despised<\/em> \u201cThe Theory of Everything,\u201d the last movie that he was really recognized for. Even though \u201cThe Danish Girl\u201d has a different director than \u201cThe Theory of Everything,\u201d the presence of Eddie Redmayne somehow seemed to confirm to me that it\u2019d be as bad.<\/p>\n

And it isn\u2019t. There are moments of \u201cThe Danish Girl\u201d that are emotionally affecting, and it\u2019s bolstered by solid performances from Eddie Redmayne, Alicia Vikander, and Matthias Schoenaerts. (This type of movie seems to always have committed actors that often outshine the script and direction. See: Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley in \u201cThe Imitation Game,\u201d Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush in \u201cThe King\u2019s Speech,\u201d etc.)<\/p>\n

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The first 45 minutes or so, in fact, I really liked. I think the way Einar gradually realized that she\u00a0was actually Lili was fairly well-done, and there\u2019s some genuine fun in the scenes where Lili dresses up and hangs out with Gerda. Those are the kinds of scenes that are happy for multiple reasons\u2014on the one hand, they\u2019re like fun dress-up games with a cute couple, and on the other hand, they show a very important, serious transformation taking place. As much melodrama and repetition as there is late in the movie, these early scenes of Lili discovering her identity are nice because she seems genuinely happy to finally be dressing as the person she feels like inside.<\/p>\n

The power of these early scenes is that you know that even though everything\u2019s fun and happy and positive, it\u2019s not going to stay that way. Gerda, inevitably, is not going to be okay with Lili\u2019s transformation once she realizes it\u2019s for real and not just a game. And there\u2019s a power to seeing these pleasant scenes slowly melt into serious drama. Lili\u2019s trip to the ball is initially fun and slightly humorous as she awkwardly pretends she\u2019s a cisgender\u00a0woman, but then there\u2019s the very serious and emotional scene when Henrik (Ben Whishaw) goes off with Lili and kisses her. This is probably Redmayne\u2019s best scene as Lili slowly gives in to Henrik\u2019s advances and kisses him back, terrified and nervous. I could really feel the pain and confusion and desire. (More on gender versus sexuality down below.)<\/p>\n

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Despite this really solid early section, I couldn\u2019t help but pick up some negative similarities between the movie and \u201cThe Theory of Everything.\u201d While Lili\u2019s childhood friend Hans is a potentially interesting character as played by the charismatic Schoenaerts, he ultimately seems to serve as a pointless \u2018new partner\u2019 role for Gerda, like Charlie Cox\u2019s character in \u201cTheory.\u201d At least the romance isn\u2019t really developed, and at least the movie ends with him quietly supporting Gerda after she loses Lili, but his character felt like a big missed opportunity to show what Lili was like when she was young.<\/p>\n

Redmayne\u2019s performance is more impressive to me here than the physical contortions of his role as Stephen Hawking, but I still get the sense that he\u2019s really trying to show off to the Academy. Some of his scenes crying are really well-done, but there\u2019s too many, and there\u2019s something about his scenes dressed up as a female that seem especially showy. It\u2019s like Look! I can dress up and look like a woman! Look how surprisingly attractive I am in traditional ladies\u2019 clothes!<\/em> This was one aspect that I hadn\u2019t even picked up on until I read Carol Grant\u2019s article about the movie simplifying womanhood<\/a>, but \u201cThe Danish Girl\u201d does tend to reduce being a woman to lipstick, traditionally feminine fashion, having gal pals, and sleeping with men.<\/p>\n

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Speaking of which: there isn\u2019t much sex in this movie at all, and it\u2019s kind of difficult to tell whether there should be more or even less. In real life, Lili was a heterosexual trans woman (or bisexual\u2014it\u2019s kind of hard to tell from the cursory research I\u2019ve done), but it\u2019s difficult to tell what role sexuality plays in the film. When Lili kisses Henrik, what does this exactly mean\u2014that she\u2019s solely attracted to men, or that she\u2019s attracted to them in addition to women? During the sex scenes between Lili and Gerda, is Lili secretly thinking of men, or is she genuinely attracted to Gerda? When their marriage dissolves, is the implication that Lili has no genuine attraction to Gerda, romantic or sexual, or is it just that this dramatic transition drives them apart?<\/p>\n

In many ways, this would be an easier story to tell if it focused exclusively on gender instead of adding in enough hints of sexuality to wish for more. If Lili began dressing exclusively as a woman, that\u2019d provide ample reason for Gerda to be concerned; it didn\u2019t need to be a kiss with a man that made her question it. Based on the kiss and the fact that Lili has secretly been seeing Henrik, Lili\u2019s sexuality seems to be the main thing driving her and her wife apart, not her gender identity\u2014the ostensible focus of the movie.<\/p>\n

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This lack of clarity about the characters, their sexualities, and their motivations makes the film begin feeling generally disjointed and shapeless after about 45 minutes. Gerda oscillates between a friendly support of Lili and a sudden rage at her husband seemingly every scene. In some movies, the occasional return of an old anger and sadness may be realistic (see the long fight scene in \u201cBefore Midnight\u201d), but in this one, it gets exhausting to try to figure out what the nature of the characters\u2019 relationship really is.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t help that there aren\u2019t many dimensions to the characters, especially Lili. What is Lili\u2019s personality, really? \u2018Painter\u2019 and \u2018transgender\u2019 are descriptors, but not personality traits. Gerda actually acknowledges this in a rare self-aware moment when Lili says, \u201cI want to be a woman, not a painter,\u201d and Gerda says, \u201cWell, some people have been known to do both.\u201d Lili\u2019s line epitomizes the flatness of her character post-gender revelation, but Gerda\u2019s funny self-aware line doesn\u2019t do enough to remedy that. Part of the strength of the beginning of the film is in seeing them talking and showing their personalities outside of the main conflict, but once the real plot kicks into gear, they play pretty flat characters, getting into the arguments and big dramatic discussions that you\u2019d expect them to. Like when Gerda asks Lili to bring her husband back and she says, \u201cI can\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Amber Heard was in this movie. That’s pretty much all I have to say about her character.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Speaking of which, there\u2019s something vaguely uncomfortable about the repeated insistence that Einar and Lili are separate people. Lili speaks of her past male self like she is killing<\/em> him by \u2018becoming\u2019 Lili. In the society when the movie is set, it\u2019s not unreasonable to think of gender identity as something that changes a person into another person, so it\u2019s not inherently offensive, but it becomes questionable when Lili repeatedly emphasizes that she\u2019s becoming a new person, as if not a single aspect of her previous life was worth living.<\/p>\n

And, going back to Gerda\u2019s earlier self-aware line, here\u2019s another instance of inconsistent characterization: sometimes, Lili (and, through her, the movie itself) does seem to be completely self-aware, but other times, it doesn\u2019t. Once, Lili says, \u201cI think Lili\u2019s thoughts, I dream her dreams. She was always there.\u201d But later on, she and Gerda speak as if Lili really never was<\/em> there, that Lili genuinely was Einar, a male, for most of her life. As funny as Hans\u2019s line \u201cI\u2019ve only liked a handful of people in my life, and you\u2019ve been two of them\u201d is, it\u2019s too much of a literalization of the transition Lili has undergone. No, Hans\u2014Lili has only been one of them. This is the same person you hung out with and loved as a kid.<\/p>\n

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And then there\u2019s the ending, the maudlin death scene. I\u2019m not sure what makes a death feel manipulative and empty; it\u2019s hard to determine. I mean, in real life, Lili Elbe did<\/em> die during an operation to construct a uterus and vagina for her. Still, though, there\u2019s something off-putting about feeling the need to make one last attempt at eliciting emotion.<\/p>\n

Because with movies like this, the best moments are the subtle ones, the ones that can\u2019t be explained in a few words. There can be big, broad moments with obvious emotional connotations like Joan Clarke telling Alan Turing \u201cSometimes it\u2019s the very people who no one imagines anything of who do the things no one can imagine\u201d in \u201cThe Imitation Game,\u201d and those can be affecting in their simplicity, but there\u2019s nothing really interesting or new or thought-provoking about moments like that. Similarly, while I felt myself getting goose bumps several times in the movie, I was conscious that that was a result of Alexandre Desplat\u2019s soaring score, the performances, and the feeling that I should<\/em> be getting emotional at that point. I was not genuinely sad when Lili died at the end of the movie. I felt like it was an inevitability in a movie like this.<\/p>\n

And I think that\u2019s what reminded me the most of \u201cThe Theory of Everything,\u201d a movie I found much worse than this one: the unfortunate feeling that all of this was so predictable. Yeah, maybe Lili Elbe did<\/em> die during the operation in real life. But of course<\/em> the movie had to end that way. Of course it did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Danish Girl\u201d isn\u2019t awful. I kind of thought it would be, for a lot of reasons. Despite a 70% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, most critics who I regularly follow gave it negative reviews, and some publications claimed it wasn\u2019t a good representation of the transgender community. Overall, it seemed to be a very […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7357"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2178"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7357"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7365,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7357\/revisions\/7365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}