>>REVIEW
RED WITHOUT BLUE
DIRECTED BY Brooke Sebold, Benita Sills and Todd Sills
Monday, April 23
Engineered Air Theatre (Epcor Centre)
Sensational stories are easy to find. Documentaries that deal with juicy stories in a way that fully honours and respects the subjects are a lot more rare. Mark and Alex Farley are two identical twin brothers whose close relationship began to unravel in junior high school, just as both of them realized that they are gay and subsequently came out. After enduring endless bullying and a sexually abusive relationship with an older teenager, they both developed hard drug habits and eventually tried to kill themselves. The boys were then put into rehab and separated for over two years. When the brothers were reunited, Alex told Mark that he had decided to live as a woman and was changing his name to Clair.
The Farley’s story is fascinating, but it’s also a story that needs to be treated delicately so as to not come off as exploitive. The film’s three first-time directors Brooke Sebold, Benita Sills and Todd Sills were friends with Mark Farley before the project was conceived and don’t pretend that they came to the film with any sense of objectivity. Fortunately, that lack of objectivity offers a respect and sensitivity that presents the twins’ situation as an extraordinary study of identity and unconditional love.
The film is shot over the course of a few years and in the beginning we find Mark and Clair both depressed and confused. Mark can’t understand why the brother he’s always considered to be his other half is trying to be so much less like him and Clair is considering gender re-assignment surgery while struggling with loneliness and isolation. Their divorced parents are similarly lost – especially their mother, who claims that she no longer sees the twins as her children, but just "young people I know."
It’s all pretty heartbreaking, especially since both Mark and Clair – who are immediately likable people – are so honest about their experiences. The filmmakers just let the cameras roll as the family work out their feelings and the narrative builds in a very subtle way, making the audience feel like we really know and care for these people.
While the filmmakers treat Clair’s transgenderism with respect rather than curiosity, Red without Blue isn’t really a movie about the journey from male to female. It’s a movie about relationships, identity and the journey to accepting those you love, no matter who they turn out to be.
Red without Blue plays as part of Movies That Matter series and will have a one-night screening at the Engineered Air Theatre on April 23 at 7 p.m. |
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