Letting gender remain a mystery
French 'Tomboy' has it her own way
Published 11/24/2011
by David Lamble
http://www.ebar.com/arts/art_article.php?sec=film&article=941 (http://www.ebar.com/arts/art_article.php?sec=film&article=941)
In the opening frames of Sciamma's fable on how gender trumps everything as we enter the magic garden of adolescence, a 10-year-old child is sitting in Daddy's lap getting a playful first driving lesson. It's one of those rare moments where we are not immediately clued into our hero's gender. Observing Laure (the impeccably androgynous Zoe Heran) interact with her attentive parents and sassy but feminine kid sister Jeanne (Malonn Levana) is like getting a privileged all-access pass to a childhood paradise immediately before the loss of innocence, sans that phrase's religious baggage. Sciamma frames Laure's bold move as the new kid in town when she declares to her first new friend Lisa, "My name is Mikael."