Comments on watching and making films.

Monday, October 6, 2008

DVD - Red Without Blue

Oddly enough, the recommendation to see this film came from Relevant Magazine, which is at least a little odd, when you first think about it. A Christian magazine giving a very good review for a documentary about two gay twins who reach an identity crisis when one of them decides he wants to under go sexual reassignment surgery? But that's why I love Relevant, because they give everything the benefit of the doubt.

Red Without Blue is a documentary about what happens when two identical twins, who are exceptionally close to one another, have to deal with one of the twins deciding that he wants to become a woman. Alex, who now lives as Clair, has been living as a female for a few years, but has finally decided to apply for sexual re-assignment surgery. Mark, Alex's twin brother, finds himself with a multitude of feelings about this, one of them being a certain sense of betrayal. If Alex is a mirror image of Mark, than does Alex hate Mark so much that he wants to become a woman to separate himself from Mark? These two faced bullies together, faced their parent's together, even attempted suicide together, and yet, in Mark's mind, he feels like Alex/Clair is trying to cut the bonds that they have suffered to build up. Alex/Clair, however sees becoming a woman as  the final step of a metamorphoses into what she truly is, and her goal, ultimately, is to get her family to accept her as a woman, and still have the kind of relationship she has always shared with her brother. But, is that kind of relationship coming to a close, now that Mark has found a long term boyfriend?

Red Without Blue is a fight for identity. It's a fight for family ties, that sometimes disappear when people change, whether it be physically or emotionally. I can't help but think there would probably be more things that could be gleaned from watching this documentary again, some truth's about life and family, but the one truth that was obvious was the most important one anyway - There comes a time in life when you have to let people go. You have to let them do their own thing, find their own way, and you can't expect them to be your family the way they were before. People grow up. People change, and, eventually, they may become something you don't recognize anymore (whether figuratively or literally), but you have to find your love for them, somehow, within that.

No comments: