The Wild Side (DVD, 2005)

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This moody French film from director Sébastian Lifshitz tells the story of Stéphanie (Stéphanie Michelini), a jaded transsexual prostitute who leaves Paris to take care of her dying mother (Josiane Storelu) in the country. She brings along her two lovers, a street-hustling Arab boy, Jamel (Yasmine Belmadi), and a Russian ex-soldier named Mikhail (Edouard Nikitine). While Stephanie and her mom come to grips with their troubled past, Mikhail has his own problems dealing with his mother back in Russia, as does Jamel who finds his lifestyle not warmly accepted by his conventional family. This is a film about crossing barriers sexually, personally, and even--to comical effect--linguistically, as Mikhail does not speak French, so everyone has to communicate in the commonly shared broken English. The structure of the film is also broken, with events presented in a jigsaw, out-of-order format, including scenes from Stephanie's childhood as a boy with her adoring sister (who died in childhood), and scenes of sometimes graphic sexual exploration. Androgynous singer Anthony (of Anthony and the Johnsons) opens the film and sets the mood with a heartbreaking serenade to a parlor full of elegantly dressed transsexuals. Real life transsexual Michelini is superb in the lead, conveying a sophistication that draws from the same bottomless well of sexual ennui as Isabelle Huppert and Marlene Dietrich. The photography by Agnés Godard captures with somber eloquence the crumbling suburban facades of Northern France and the intertwined bodies of the lead actors.