Lili Elbe, Danish Transgender Pioneer

• Posted by Hannah Ceridwen Eluned Cavendish-Grosvenor January 4, 2016 Filed in Society Girl's Personal Blogs 1,175 views
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  I have yet to watch this film ( eagerly awaited )in oill give my own view in a few days timeur local cinema. But, this comment is a precis of the views of my Transgender sisters in the Groups to which I belong, who have seen it on its first day or two.

   

  Inevitably the new film, starring Eddie Redmayne, Alicia Vicander, Bert Whitshaw and Sebastian Koch (directed by Tom Hooper) is meeting with a mixed receptionfrom the Transgender community. It is a somewhat laboured costume drama, not dissimilar to 'Downton Abbey'. Eddie Redmayne produces a stunning performance; but, tends to go too far in creating his feminine persona. The Swedish actress, Alicia Vicander, plays a modern and updated version of her persona in 'Testament of Youth' with an accent and voice to match: she comes across more as a woman of today, and not of 1920s Copenhagen. The result is apparantly a significant, but not marked, tendancy for the scenes to gently slide in to pantomine.

   

  I did not know that Gerda was a struggling professional portraitist, and Einar Wegener a moderately successful Landscape artist. The realisation of his Gender Dissonance appears to arrive when he deputises in a female celebrity's's portrait sitting. Odd that he had, according to a script culled frnom Gerda's later published diaries, no indication or previous feelings on this l ife-changing matter. The occasion of her 'coming out' in public is apparently reduced to farce and absurdity with regards to a poorly written script by Lucinda Coxon, who appears uncomfortable and awkward in the Transgender environment.

   

  Sadly, there is no serious attempt to approach the main issues in Lili's Gender Transition and re-assignment: the historic surgery by Dr Warnekos ( Koss); and, the tragic error of the clinical decision to transplant ovaries and uterus as a further proceedure soon after, resulting in her untimely death. Here we have a highly stressful and charged situation, without the reassurance of previous surgical experience: yet there is no clinical imput, and the issue is both glossed over and air-brushed out, The result is an internment of the challenge and complexity of the Transition process, which is sadly submerged under a glossy and sumptuous surface of rich design, ravishing beauty, wonderful costumes and, on occasions, somewhat 'over the top' acting.

   

  The lovely Hannah was reduced to tears on the occasion of her seeing 'The Danish Girl', at the weekend; and, had to stay in her seat for some time after the rest of the audience had left, in order to compose herself. I felt the same way when I started to watch BBC2's 'Boy meets Girl'. For me it was when it reaches the restaurant scene, and Rebecca Root announces to the 'boy' that she is a Trans-woman (overheard by an astonished waiter). Her reply to the question "what is it like?' was along the lines of 'like being locked in a prison cell with no hope of a release date". I burst into tears and switched over, never to watch another episode.