Old Yorker

  • Who I Am Not

    Old YorkerFilm review

    Tünde Skovrán (2023)

    The Romanian actress Tünde Skovrán makes her debut as a feature director with this documentary about two young intersex persons in present-day South Africa.  Tall, elegant Sharon-Rose Khumalo has always identified as female and is sexually attracted to men.  She was adult, and successful on the national beauty-queen circuit, when she found out in 2016 that she had XY chromosomes and no uterus.  She isn’t (or wasn’t at the time of filming) in a settled relationship.  Dimakatso Sebidi, stockier and less pretty, presents as male, uses the pronouns they/them[1] and lives with a female partner.  Born with female and male genitalia but assigned female at birth, DS underwent repeated hospital treatments during childhood, including penis removal, although the relevant medical records no longer exist and DS’s father isn’t sure if the penis was actually removed or if doctors ‘tucked it in’.  In the course of Who I Am Not, Dimakatso visits a gynaecologist, who conducts a genital examination and a genetic test to determine DS’s chromosomal make-up.  The climax to Skovrán’s narrative is the announcement of the test results at a second interview with the gynaecologist – to which Sharon-Rose, rather than DS’s life partner, accompanies Dimakatso.

    It isn’t explained either how the principals came to be involved in the film or at what stage of its development they met each other.  But the climactic visit to the gynaecologist is the third sequence where Sharon-Rose and Dimakatso are on screen together; like the two preceding bits, it’s clearly set up to underline both the differences between them and their fellow feeling.  In the first of these sequences, Sharon-Rose expertly applies cosmetics to Dimakatso’s face, which is unused to make-up, and puts DS in a shirt-dress – a more feminine garment than DS normally wears.  Despite being contrived, the scene is touching.  The cosmetics, although they make Dimakatso prettier, don’t amount to a transformative makeover; nor are they a grotesque denaturing of DS.  The second sequence is simply talk between Sharon-Rose and Dimakatos about some of the challenges they face.  The climactic meeting with the affable, kindly (male) gynaecologist reveals that Dimakatso, who doesn’t identify as female, has XX chromosomes.  Sharon-Rose, sitting alongside, admits that she ‘would have killed’ to get that result.

    Other notable contrasts between Sharon-Rose and Dimakatso include one that’s obvious and intentional, and one that feels inadvertent.  As a beauty queen, Sharon-Rose is used to being a public face and, as a marketing manager for a pharmaceutical company, is comfortably off.  Dimakatso has hitherto lived a life out of sight, with few mod cons, and is struggling to find work.  The presumably unintentional difference between them is that Dimakatso is more likeable and seems more real.  At the start of the film, Sharon-Rose tells us in voiceover that she sometimes wishes ‘my life was a movie’ – for which she had learned the script, in which she knew what would happen.  (Many people, including plenty of non-intersex people, must have had the same thoughts.)  It’s a pity that Sharon-Rose, well aware of the set-up of the film she’s actually appearing in, is inclined to express herself in movie-script clichés.  Dimakatso, who’s not a practised performer, doesn’t.

    Sharon-Rose attends a baby shower, where she sits wistfully on the sidelines; she recalls schooldays, when other girls started to have periods and she lied that she had started too.  Her medical condition seems not to be physically painful in ways that Dimakatso’s is, presumably thanks to those childhood surgeries.  DS sometimes discharges blood in urine – we see it on the underclothes that DS’s partner washes by hand.  A genital examination of DS reveals, as well as that the penis was fully removed, a growth that’s reckoned to be a cross between ovary and testis.  Dimakatso has breasts (which DS binds) as a result of female hormone injections in DS’s formative years; it’s only in the follow-up interview with the gynaecologist that he suggests the urinary blood may be a limited form of menstruation.  DS’s widowed father explains to his daughter (as he continues to see her) that he and DS’s mother believed they were doing the right thing by allowing DS to be ‘emasculated’ although DS recalls still wanting to do ‘boy things’ like play football post-surgery.  The father, who also believes the surgery was God’s will, is eager to be vindicated.  His reaction to the news of Dimakatso’s confirmed XX profile is, ‘So you no longer blame me then?’

    Although both protagonists are Christians, Dimakatso’s beliefs appear to be more deeply rooted.  The film’s juxtaposition of the cultural forces of evangelical Christianity and tribal religion shows the latter as relatively more charitable.  In a packed church service, an aggressive preacher conducts on-the-spot exorcism of the ‘demons’ of a presumably intersex youngster in his congregation.  Visiting a female shaman involves, for Dimakatso, a gruesome ‘cleansing’ ritual involving live chickens (at least they’re live at the start of the ritual) but the wise woman speaks to DS with quiet compassion.  These episodes made me wonder, more than anything else, what the spiritual adepts thought of the film crew’s presence.  Who I Am Not is often affecting but this is usually in spite of Tünde Skovrán’s predilection for staging and visual contrivance (I could have done without repeated images of semi-foetal creatures suspended in dark, glittering water).  That said, one of the staged bits is a delight – partly because it’s also a rare moment of comedy.  Late on in the narrative, DS and partner get a washing machine that will transform their domestic routine.  Along with the friend who helps install it, they go into a celebratory dance as they witness the machine go about its work.  This reaches a climax in the percussive spin cycle whose sound, thanks to the dance, suggests tribal drums.  There’s also an enjoyable moment of light relief in the second interview with the gynaecologist.  When he explains and demonstrates that in males the ring finger is typically longer than the index finger, both Dimakatso and Sharon-Rose are more conspicuously fascinated by this than by anything else they hear from him.

    Who I Am Not received its British premiere at the BFI Flare Festival the evening before I saw it but several important contributors to the film attended this follow-up screening and were welcomed to the platform in NFT3 by Wema Mumma, one of the Flare programmers.  The line-up included, among others, Sharon-Rose Khumalo, Dimakatso Sebidi and Andrei Zinca, one of the film’s producers (and, like its writer-director, Romanian).  In turn, these guests said who they and what their pronouns were; each time this happened, some in the audience whooped and clapped.  Andrei Zinca admitted, almost sheepishly, that he wasn’t intersex and neglected to explain his pronouns:  you could feel the atmosphere change but Zinca redeemed himself by thanking us for coming to the film and asking us to go out and spread the word.  I was relieved for his sake that he got a round of applause after all but what exactly is the word to be spread?

    Probably not that intersex people deserve sympathy – though I must admit I felt that Sharon-Rose and Dimakatso were chiefly unfortunate – and admirable, especially the latter, in coping with their misfortune.  (DS is now an intersex rights activist.)  Sharon-Rose, on a date with a man, tells him that and why she’ll never be able to have children.  As far as the man’s concerned, this means there’s no future in a relationship between them; he tells Sharon-Rose he’s sorry and she tells him not to feel sorry for her.  She seems to take what he says as regret that she’s intersex although the man might have expressed himself in similar terms to a non-intersex woman unable to conceive.

    Who I Am Not no doubt means to promote wider understanding of what it means to be intersex and there’s clearly scope for that.  Dimakatso goes to a laundry to inquire about jobs going; asked to complete a tick-box profile, DS explains why this is easier said than done (the woman who gives DS the form to fill in assumes that intersex is simply the same as transgender).  It’s a difficulty, though, that Tünde Skovrán,  probably without meaning to, is preaching to the converted:  few people who buy a ticket for her film will do so in complete ignorance of what it means to be intersex.  It’s a further difficulty, for the purpose of spreading the word, that Skovrán doesn’t always define her terms precisely.  In the closing titles, she dedicates her film to the estimated 150 million people worldwide with ‘intersex traits’ – but what does that mean?  The phrase has a qualified, cautious ring that rather implies a wider range of conditions than Sharon-Rose’s and Dimakatso’s.  (For example, index finger vs ring finger length is recognised as a sexually dimorphic trait:  are men and women with unusual finger measurements being included in that figure of 150 million?)

    The case for greater acceptance is unarguable, of course, in the sense that intersex people shouldn’t be (as they traditionally have been) stigmatised, ostracised or subjected to surgical intervention decided upon by someone else.  But I got the impression from Who I Am Not and the BFI intro that acceptance in these terms isn’t considered enough – that full ‘inclusion’ is being called for.  The last person to arrive on the NFT3 platform was Valentino Vecchietti, who is not only intersex but also designed the ‘Intersex-Inclusive’ flag that, according to its designer, went viral and is now seen at increasing numbers of Pride festivals around the world.  Inclusiveness in this limited context is one thing, inclusiveness in the ‘binary’ world at large quite another – and Tünde Skovrán raises, without wrestling with, the practical difficulties of the latter.  Near the end of the film, Sharon-Rose insists that individuals are not to be defined by their chromosomes or their ability to give birth:  definition must be self-definition.  This article of faith in identity politics isn’t much help to the manager of a factory where Dimakatso goes for another job interview.  The manager isn’t unsympathetic but he’s worried about the expense of new signage to recognise a group other than men or women.  He wonders which facilities DS will use if there are only male and female toilets.

    22 March 2023

    [1] To avoid ambiguity in this note, however, I’ll be using ‘they/them’ only as pronouns referring to more than one person.  I’ll refer to Dimakatso as DS where I think it makes sense to do so.

  • Close-up

    Old YorkerFilm review

    Nema-ye Nazdik

    Abbas Kiarostami (1990)

    Defining Close-up as a ‘docufiction’ (as Wikipedia does) may be technically accurate but doesn’t begin to do justice to Abbas Kiarostami’s fascinating and imaginative film.  Around half of it consists of footage of an actual criminal trial that took place in Tehran in 1989.  The defendant, charged with fraud, was a man in his mid-thirties called Hossain Sabzian.  Most of the other half comprises reconstructions of events leading up to his arrest and trial.  In the latter sequences, all concerned play themselves and Kiarostami’s magic touch enables his non-professional cast to perform with the ease and confidence of seasoned pros, except that they’re more natural than most seasoned pros.  All the people on screen are thoroughly and vividly believable – Hossain Sabzian outstandingly so – and the film’s two parts articulate seamlessly.   But that summary of Close-up doesn’t do justice to Kiarostami’s achievement either.

    Hossain Sabzian is divorced, unemployed and a cinephile.  A fan especially of Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Hossain is reading the published screenplay of Makhmalbaf’s recent hit film The Cyclist (1987) during a bus ride.  The woman sitting beside him strikes up a conversation, mentioning her enthusiasm for The Cyclist and her two sons’ love of cinema.  On the spur of the moment, Sabzian tells the woman, Mrs Ahankhah, that he is Mohsen Makhmalbaf and that he’d be happy to encourage her sons’ interests in film.  He asks her to write down her address, she does so and, in the days that follow, Sabzian visits the Ahankhahs’ home several times.  He says he’d like to use the place as the location for his next shoot and to cast the two Ahankhah sons in the film.  He requests and receives money – for travelling expenses – from one of the sons.  Their father’s suspicions that the persistent visitor is an imposter are increased by a magazine photograph of the real Mohsen Makhmalbaf, despite there being some facial resemblance between him and Sabzian.  Ahankhah père contacts a journalist, Hossain Farazmand, who confirms that Sabzian isn’t who he claims to be.  The authorities arrest him at the Ahankhahs’ house – not before Farazmand, fancying his chances of a scoop, has taken photographs to accompany his planned piece ‘Bogus Makhmalbaf Arrested’.

    The order of scenes in Close-up doesn’t follow this chronological sequence of events.  Kiarostami begins with Farazmand, accompanied by two soldiers, travelling by taxi to the Ahankhahs’ home.  Sabzian doesn’t appear in the film until he emerges from the house under arrest.  His chance meeting with Mrs Ahankhah, which sets everything off, features at a later stage as, in effect, a flashback.  Even without Sabzian, the preliminaries are absorbing, especially the conversation between the cab driver and the soldiers, as they wait in the taxi while Farazmand disappears into the house for a few minutes before the arrest is made.  This conversation is surely predetermined to the extent that the ‘actors’ were instructed to make conversation – yet we seem to be eavesdropping on something that’s actually happening.  This sense of reality is strong enough to feed through even to Kiarostami’s visual conceits, which seem like things the camera happened to pick up, though they must have been planned.  For example, an empty drink can rolls slowly across the frame (twice!) to almost hypnotic effect.

    In custody and awaiting trial, Sabzian receives a visit from Kiarostami, who wants to film the court proceedings.  He also has an interview with Haj Ali Reza Ahmadi, the judge appointed for the trial, asking for the trial date to be brought forward and for permission to record in the courtroom.  (By this point in Close-up, it’s almost academic whether Kiarostami’s interactions with Sabzian and the judge are the original meetings that took place between them or reconstructions of these meetings.)  Kiarostami succeeds in both his requests:  the nerve he shows in making them – he wants the trial date changed to suit his own film-making schedule rather than for the defendant’s sake – almost eclipses Sabzian’s more desperate effrontery in pretending to be a movie director.  At the trial, Kiarostami is allowed not only to sit on the right-hand side of the judge (albeit on a seat at a lower level) but also to put questions to Sabzian and others giving evidence, who include the Ahankhahs and Farazmand.

    The trial proceedings are altogether unexpected for Western viewers with (like me) an almost complete ignorance of Iranian judicial procedure of the time.  Sensitively incisive questioning of the defendant yields a fuller picture of what prompted his reckless pretence.  Sabzian, his accusers and other witnesses sit in close proximity to each other and express themselves temperately.  The only blatant emotionality comes from Sabzian’s mother, when she pleads for mercy on behalf of her son – and she too controls her feelings as best she can.  The judge’s more sophisticated questions prove him exceptionally well qualified to contribute to Close-up‘s richly textured exploration of appearance vs reality.  At one point, interrogating the defendant’s interest in films and acting, Haj Ali Reza Ahmadi asks, ‘What part would you have liked to play?’  When Sabzian replies, ‘My own’, the judge reminds him that ‘You are playing your own part’.  Although it’s tempting to describe the trial as an illustration of truth being stranger than fiction, such a description is too primitive  in light of the complicated relationship of truth and fiction that Kiarostami develops.

    The judge is also sympathetic towards Sabzian, who has no prior criminal record but alimony to pay to his ex-wife, with whom he has a young son.  Ahmadi (along with Kiarostami!) asks the Ahankhahs if they’re willing to pardon Sabzian.  They agree to do so in the hope that he won’t misbehave again.  His sentence is accordingly lenient: a minimum of one month in jail – time that he has already served.  He emerges from prison to be met by the real Mohsen Makhmalbaf, whose embrace reduces Sabzian to the tears he just about kept in check in the courtroom.  He rides pillion on Makhmalbaf’s motorcycle to the Ahankhahs’ house; they stop en route for Sabzian to buy a flowering plant to present to the family by way of apology and gratitude.  The dialogue is audible as Makhmalbaf advises Sabzian to choose a plant with pink flowers rather than yellow but not while they’re on the road.  Although his film crew follows the motorcycle all the way, Kiarostami gives Sabzian private time with the man he impersonated by contriving (I guess) a technical hitch that cuts out the sound of their conversation.  The film’s funniest line comes when Sabzian uses the intercom on the entrance to the house to announce his arrival.  Mrs Ahankhah’s voice answers.  Sabzian gives his name, which she doesn’t recognise even when he repeats it.  He hasn’t much option but to say ‘Makhmalbaf’.  She knows who he is then.  The real Makhmalbaf has to intervene to get the family to answer the door.

    Midway through Close-up, an extended scene inside the Ahankhahs’ home reconstructs what took place there at the same time that the taxi bearing Farazmand and the soldiers was making its way towards the house to arrest the fraudster.  This masterly dramatisation of Sabzian’s rising concern and anxiety – marvellously communicated by the man himself – is painful to watch.  When, at the end of the film, he’s allowed back inside the house and a smiling Mr Ahankhah says of Sabzian, ‘I hope he’ll be good now and make us proud of him’, the effect is oddly healing.  This is the last line of the film, which ends on a freeze frame of Hossain Sabzian’s face.  He died in 2006 at the age of only fifty-two but not the least amazing aspect of Close-up is that it delivers happy endings for all concerned.  Cinephile Sabzian, as well as meeting and receiving kindness from his hero Mohsen Makhmalbaf, is truly and centrally involved in the making of a film.  To a lesser extent, so are the movie-loving Ahankhah sons and their parents.  Newshound Hossain Farazmand gets the big story he was after.  And Abbas Kiarostami has created a great piece of cinema.

    10 March 2023

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