FILM OF THE WEEK
INTERVIEW | review: Tintenfischalarm |
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| Written by Boyd van Hoeij | |
| Wednesday, 15 February 2006 | |
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A documentary shot over several years, Tintenfischalarm (Octopusalarm) is an unflinching look at the life of a person who was born with an indefinite sex and who has suffered and still suffers because the parents decided at age two that the person would have to be girl and was thus surgically altered to resemble this ideal. On her birth certificate she was called Jürgen and had an "m" in the sex field, but after age two she became Alexandra. Now in her twenties she wants to be Alex and filmmaker Elisabeth Sharang has followed her on the long and difficult road to be who he wants to be.
The documentary exists of two basic elements: direct-to-camera footage of Alex talking (often to the director who is also on camera) and more cinematic shots of Alex in his surroundings set to music that elevate the film from its stuffy talking heads origins to something more evocative, giving room to the audience to try to look at Alex as a person before looking at which gender category he might fall into. Though the film could have used a slight trimming (especially in its San Francisco section which is overly long and becomes boring), overall Sharang knows how to keep the pace going and never loses the integrity of her subject out of sight. Not a small feat since this type of film could have easily exploited its subject and put on the documentary equivalent of a circus freak show. The title refers to an expression used by Alex in his childhood when other schoolyard children wanted to touch him "down there". Film screened at the Berlinale 2006. |
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