Alain Berliner's Ma Vie En Rose

Alain Berliner's Ma Vie En Rose

I watched the foreign film Ma Vie en Rose (My Life in Pink), a Belgian film by filmmaker Alain Berliner. It is a warm, startling, funny, and realistic study of what happens when a seven-year-old boy is convinced, beyond all reason and outward evidence to the contrary, that he is really a girl. His certitude is astonishing in one so little, and his gender conviction is so strong that his belief can't be laughed away as the result of a “phase” or an “active imagination.” Yet the crux of Ma Vie en Rose is not a study of trans-gendered children per se, despite the fact that such sensational subject matter would seem to be surefire material for attention-grabbing moviemaking. You're never even quite certain about the long-term psychological ramifications of young Ludovic's obsession: Is he trans-gendered, a transvestite, gay, or straight? Such determinations are not the movie's concern. What Ma Vie en Rose is interested in is what it means to be a “difficult” child, a child who whose difference always sets him apart, and what it means to be the parents of such a child. Here we see some cultural differences with the characters.

Ludovic's parents, Hanna and Pierre, are amazingly tolerant of their seven-year-old's irresistible desire to dress in skirts, even though they try to reason with him to behave otherwise. Though there were moments when the child’s parents about lost it, they were amazingly tolerable to his desires and still managed to keep that family unity, something I am not so sure would go over well in an American setting where boys play baseball and girls play dress up. However, noting the obvious differences, the film does share similarities that we might overlook. The...

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...rt. There is no social stigma attached to a young girl who dresses like a boy, plays rough, wears Band-Aids on her skinned knees like badges of honor, and prefers trading baseball cards to jumping rope. It's regarded as "just part of growing up." Reverse the situation, however. The result -- a boy who adopts the traits of a girl -- is unacceptable. Such a child, who plays with dolls, puts on makeup, and wears dresses, is likely to become a pariah. And that is the situation explored by Alain Berliner in this film

This brings out emotions in the viewer from people shunning and hurting this family because of a boy, one single little boy. At Part social realism, part human comedy, part family drama, and part storybook fantasy, Ma Vie en Rose is an original, thought-provoking, and entertaining piece of work that I am glad I got to experience as part of this class.