| Queer culture has come a long way since the ’70s, mostly in the direction of the mainstream. But Tiresia resembles cinema of the old-school variety, from a time when Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Derek Jarman used gender as metaphor for otherness or as metonym.
Any film that opens with a Beethoven symphony playing over an extended shot of flowing lava has a lot to live up to, but Tiresia – a modern retelling of the Greek myth of Tiresias, transgendered by the gods, then given the gift of prophecy when he/she loses his/her sight – delivers beyond all expectation.
Here a prostitute, a transsexual-in-progress, is kidnapped and held hostage by a man fascinated by her sexual ambiguity. But when, denied her hormones, her appearance turns increasingly masculine, he blinds her to prevent her from identifying him and dumps her body in a desolate corner of the countryside. Taken in by a young girl and her aging (grand?) father, she soon proves to have second sight and develops a following of cautious worshippers in the community, until at last a priest comes to investigate.
In its dream-like telling and systematic doublings, the American film it most closely resembles is David Lynch’s Lost Highway. The story is split by that single, sudden act of violence and while the Tiresia of the first half is played by a woman (Clara Choveaux with required prosthesis), in the second part the role is held by a man (Thiago Thelès). And while kidnapper and priest were originally to have been played by different actors, the director decided at the last minute to have them played by the same man, without altering the script. The origin of the film was suitably oneiric: one night the story came in its entirety to one of the director’s friends in a dream.
Yet it is unmistakably French in restraint, its respect for silence, its slow travellings and philosophical internal monologues that momentarily overload the viewer with ideas that are more disorienting than any Hollywood plot twist or jump-shot, balanced by a Bressonian sensitivity in the treatment of actors and dialogue.
Visually, it is one of the most beautiful films of 2004, filled with the rich greys of city nights and interiors in the first half, and faded misty greys of the countryside in the second. There’s an unforgettable sequence early on as the kidnapper cruises a forest populated by a flamboyant horde of transsexuals and pimps, shot in silence until he comes across his victim, set slightly apart, gently singing a lullaby.
Naturally, there’s a great deal owed to Pedro Almodovar’s later works, not just in the subject matter but in the complete and confident absence of conventional normality. Where Fassbinder and Jarman took gleeful pleasure in the discomfort their visions provoked in straight audiences, director Bertrand Bonello skilfully avoids sensationalism, emphasizing that the real transgression here is the act of violence, and not its context.
Confusion and ambiguity run throughout the film, but a dialogue on faith and certainty slowly emerges in the second half, as Tiresia struggles to explain the nature of her knowledge.
The video conversion is irreproachable, the English subtitles faithful to the original and the DVD comes with two valuable extras – an extended commentary from the director and a spirited cross-interview with the principal actor and actress. This is a rare film that completely engages the intellect and the emotions for its duration and leaves a lasting impression long after it is over. I can’t recommend it too highly. |
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