MA VIE EN ROSE
By Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Sony Pictures classics Director: Alain Berliner Writer: Chris Vander Stappen, Alain Berliner Cast: Georges DuFresne, Jean-Philippe Ecoffey, Daniel Hanssens, Michele Laroque, Cristina Barget, Julien Riviere.
The suburbs are stereotyped as places which do not tolerate differences the way urban residents do, and writers Chris Vander Stappen and Alain Berliner do nothing to subvert that notion. In "Ma Vie En Rose" ("My Life in Pink")-- which played at the New York Film Festival and at Cannes and was winner in the Best Picture category at the Karlovy- Vary Film Festival--first-time director Berliner scores big using a remarkable first-time actor in the title role.
Told from the point of view of a seven-year-old boy, Ludovic (George DuFresne), "Ma Vie En Rose" focuses in on a middle-class Brussels suburb in which everyone seems to act cheerfully alike and old age appears to have been banished. Elisabeth (Helene Vincent), a grandma and the oldest person in the movie, looks as though she had gone through liposuction and a few tucks. The liveliest one in the crowd, this fifty-something woman switches off a slow dance number at a party and substitutes music with a disco beat--obviously a woman who has come to maturity during the peak of the feminist revolution. The teachers are all young, attractive and lithe, and even the psychologist who is hired to treat Ludovic looks as though she has just received her doctorate. This emphasis on youth--and on startlingly bright colors as well-- signals us that "Ma Vie En Rose" is in many ways a fairy tale, one which never tries overtly to make statements or suggest psychological theories; in fact, director Berliner could not care less about where his characters are headed. This is all to the good.
Ludo acts differently from all others in the community though it becomes clear that he is not doing so to draw attention to himself. At the age of seven, he is at the point n life that psychologists say people carve out an identity. Ludo knows his: he is a girl in a boy's body who has little regard for hiding his transvestism, even though his behavior will lead to his father's losing his job, his own expulsion from his school, his parents going ballistic, and the neighbors staring at his antics in downright shock and deadly silence. If this kid lived in New York or Paris, nobody would pay heed, but in a suburb which values fitting in above all other traits, he is an outcast.
For the most part, Berliner treats the situation with good humor, though he does have his director of photography, Yves Cape, mute the vivid colors for most of the second half of the movie, turning the bright reds and blues into pale shadows of their former selves. Ludovic's antics lead to one disaster after another. In a school play he locks Snow White in the bathroom and takes over the role himself, if only to be kissed by Jerome (Julien Riviere), the lad he has fallen in love with. He attends a party in a skirt, his parents telling their neighbors that they are allowing the boy to fulfill his fantasies and thereby banalize them, which is to say, will allow him to outgrow his illusions. Though the neighbors smile in apparent understanding, they unanimously sign a petition causing him to be thrown out of school.
The most amusing scene occurs just after Ludovic is told by his older sister Zoe (Cristina Barget) that God creates boys by giving them XY chromosomes, while XX genes are distributed to the females. Ludo dreams that he was set to get his double-x, but one letter bounced off the chimney and landed in the trash can: ergo, the girl in a boy's body.
Ludo may or may not outgrow his cross-dressing proclivity. But "Ma Vie En Rose" has no intention to make us care. What this charming little story does care about is relating incidents as a child sees them, a boy at the age in which everything is possible (including his turning into a girl when he grows up), who wants everyone to love him without demanding that he conform to their narrow expectations. The ensemble, which at times seem like characters from a Disney sketch, play their parts impeccably: Jean-Philippe Ecoffey as Pierre, the father who learns to accept his son's tendencies; Michele Laroque as Hanna, the mom who tries to understand but rages within; Daniel Hanssens as Albert, Pierre's boss, a creep who assures Pierre that his job is safe but betrays him; and especially Georges DuFresne in his first acting job, a solemn kid who rarely smiles but always insists on being himself. Rated R. Running Time: 88 minutes. (C) 1997 Harvey Karten
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