by Sarah Cope

What can you expect from a film that, when it premiered at Cannes earlier this year, was met with both booing and clapping? Though perhaps that mixed reaction is to be expected, because this film deals with the issue of sex work, which is an issue sure to polarise opinion like no other.

Lucy (Emily Browning) is depicted taking on all kinds of work in order to pay for her degree, to the extent that it is difficult to see when she would find the time to actually study. Although this is an Australian film, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the plight of students in the UK these days, who must find themselves in a similar situation due to spiralling tuition fees.

The first work we see Lucy doing is when she takes part in medical research in return for cash. This involves swallowing a tube down her throat, which looks painful and disgusting, causing her to gag non-stop. This of course raises the question: is this work not more exploitative and dangerous than the sex work we later see her engage in? Other work she is depicted carrying out include mind-numbing waitressing and an office job doing endless photocopying, where the female boss enjoys treating her badly.

Already engaging in seemingly ad-hoc sex work, she answers an advert which leads to a job doing next to naked waitressing at private parties, which earns her two hundred and fifty an hour. This in turn leads to more sex work (‘promotion’) but of a very unusual kind. She consents to be drugged, and then, unconscious, letting elderly men have access to her body on the stipulation that there is to be no penetration.
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by Sarah Cope

Melancholia has been hugely overshadowed by the comments of its director, Lars von Trier, at the
Cannes film festival earlier this year. Von Trier said he felt “sympathy” with Hitler, and in so doing caused a furore that meant his film wasn’t given the attention it deserved. This is a shame,because here is a film that deserves to be seen, and is at its best on the big screen.

When reviewing a film, the first thing to bear in mind is not to give away the ending. However, von Trier opens the film with the ending, so discussing it won’t be giving too much away. It is quite literally an ending: the end of the world, which is depicted simply, devastatingly and with a sweeping Wagner soundtrack. Viewers might be reminded slightly of Space Odyssey 2001 at this point. It is certainly one of the most arresting opening scenes of any film I have ever seen.

The film is then split into two sections, ‘Justine’ and ‘Claire’, named after the two sisters around whom the story revolves. Played by Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg respectively, the actresses give their best performances to date, although we never learn why the former has an American accent, the latter an English one.

The first section takes place on the night of Justine’s wedding. Claire has organised the event meticulously on her sister’s behalf, and takes great offence that her sister is unable to enter into the spirit of things due to her depression. “But I smile and I smile and I smile!” laments Justine, to which Claire rather unkindly comments “You’re lying to us all.” Claire’s husband John (Kiefer Sutherland) only adds to Justine’s woes when, commenting on the fact that he has paid for the event, states “You better be goddamn happy. Do you have any idea how much this party cost me?”
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by Sarah Cope

Tomboy has been described by some reviewers as being about a “gender confused kid”, though in Zoe Heran’s magnificent portrayal of 10-year-old Laure/Mikael, I saw a child who was quite at home with her identity; it was instead society that was confused by her.

It is the summer holidays, and Laure has just moved to a new neighbourhood and decides to introduce herself to the local children as “Mikael”, and pretend to be a boy. This doesn’t take much of a pretence as she is more at home in this identity than the one she has to assume at home. There she is Laure, playing happily with her younger, tutu-wearing sister Jeanne (Malonn Levana).

Both the performances of the two child actresses are outstanding, leading me to wonder how much was improvised, so naturalistic were the scenes between the two girls.

The tension throughout the film is never overstated but always menacingly there in the background. When Laure models a Play Doh penis to wear in her improvised swimming trunks, we wince as we imagine it becoming dislodged and revealing the extent of her façade to the baffled children.

When the boys with whom she plays football urinate in public, she doubles over in agony as she is desperate to do the same but obviously cannot without revealing her sex.

But things really become complicated when Lisa, one of the other children in the neighbourhood, falls for Mikael, and is quite forward in her advances to him, having no idea he is in fact female.

The film’s subtle nature comes into its own here; is Laure attracted to girls? Does she in fact like boys?

Or, at the age of ten, is she simply undecided or uninterested? We never quite know, and the film is all the better for not spelling this out.

Laure’s awkwardness, brought on to a large extent by her double life and her constant fear of discovery, is in marked contrast to the ease and confidence of the other children, for whom life seems so much more simple.

When Lisa puts make-up on Laure and declares “you look great as a girl!”, Laure’s unease is palpable.

To reveal the denouement would be to spoil the viewing experience entirely, but suffice to say that the conclusion matches up to the rest of this short, original and ultimately moving film.

Tomboy is on general release.