Dana reviews The Danish Girl starring dramatic powerhouse, Eddie Redmayne.
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| Jupiter Ascending. How could I? |
Complex and heartbreaking, The Danish Girl tells the story of Lili Elbe, who was born Einar
Wegener – a painter who was among the very first sex reassignment surgery
recipients. Based on the David Ebershoff novel of the same name, Tom Hooper’s
thoughtful dramatic interpretation of her biography is a beautiful homage to
both the man and the woman that Elbe was, focusing on the relationship between Einar
Wegener and his wife Gerda, who was a brilliant artist in her own right, and
the changing dynamics between them as he realizes that Lili is truly who he is
– and that he must “fix nature’s mistake”
in order to truly become in full the woman he knows he is on the inside, during
a time when transgender identity was treated as a perversion or a disease.
In fact, it is as Gerda’s model that Lili begins to come
into being as an individual, and she is at first possessive of the idea of Lili
as a person – she is, after all, in love with Einar. But as Lili begins to take
shape as a woman, as a person driven of her own dreams and desires, Gerda must
come to understand her own feelings for the person who has always lived lying
dormant within the man she married, and come to terms with how her existence
separate from him will change the way they live and work together.
Visually, the film is positively breathtaking. Wide-shot
frames are constructed like watercolor paintings, breathing with color and the
resplendent natural movements of a world which does not define itself in human
compartmentalization. From the first frames, we are treated to a world of shape
and form, which does not completely focus on the human beings even when they
are at the center of the narrative. Hooper creates a world around what these
characters have to say, rather than within it – dialog takes a back seat to the
carefully off-center shots and dislodged pans as it follows the breakdowns and
reimagining of the psyches of its two protagonists. Both Einar and Gerda Wegener are,
essentially, becoming new people during the process of this film and they must
as such redefine their love for one another; they can no longer live as husband
and wife as Einar sheds his biological disguise and Gerda must try to let her
husband, as a person, go in order to let Lili Elbe emerge and live her own
life.
It is consummately devastating to watch both of these characters’
struggle with the transformation Einar Wegener undergoes in order to completely
become Lili Elbe. Their love for one another is obvious – each wants the other
to have what they need in order to be happy, but the diverging paths which
become evident when Lili begins to surface more prominently in Einar’s daily
life reveal that they may simply be unable to provide for one another
emotionally the way they both desire. It is painful to watch them fight with
themselves as they try to allow for each other’s freedom and accept Lili as the
woman who has always lived within Einar’s body.
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| Hmmmm. A portrait of Balem Abrasax? These textures will be soooooo boring and melodramatic. |
If anything is amiss in this film, it is only the
slightly obvious symbolism which coats several key scenes; Eddie Redmayne and
Alicia Vikander, as Lili and Gerda respectively, are so resplendently aware of
their characters’ inner hearts and desires that their performances do not need
to be supplemented with clichés and heavy-handed leitmotifs. A single facial
expression from Redmayne, a vocal tic from Vikander, are all it takes to feel
the same pain, confusion, longing, and love these characters feel. The
cinematography, too – coupled with an elegantly modest score from Alexandre
Desplat – speaks volumes where dialog only seems to support what the visuals
have already made perfectly clear.
Score
-Dana Culling