FratFiles

• Save Paper

Although we tend to mythologize childhood as a carefree kingdom, a playland of imagination and innocence, the real nature of our formative years will occasionally come into focus as a hairy old memory or as the content of a troubling work of art, in this case the brilliant first feature of Belgian director Alain Berliner, Ma Vie en Rose (My Life in Pink).

Berliner sees the supposedly benign aspects of childhood as two-sided coins: Games of competition become excuses for domination; toys are training gear for the future. And the indoctrination of children into allotted gender roles is serious business &emdash; as Ma Vie 's main character, Ludovic, learns all too painfully.

Ludovic is a sweet, graceful boy with an angelic face, whose family and neighbors are horrified at his most heartfelt wish: to correct the "mistake" of his biology and recover his real identity as a girl. At first the film, its characters and audience all laugh patronizingly at this discomforting little......

View the rest of this paper...

Approximate Word Count: 368
Approximate Pages: 2 (250 words per double-spaced page)

Similar Essays

1. Psy Of Chile
   

   Psy of chile Although we tend to mythologize childhood as a carefree kingdom, a playland of imagination and innocence, the real nature of our formative years will occasionally

2. 
   

3. 
   

4. 
   

5.