Ma vie en rose (French)
My Life in Pink (Translated in English)
1997 Belgian film
directed by Alain Berliner
Apart from the fact that the above film in French uses 'Pink' as a referrent to an ambiguous identity of an individual, (pulling from what associations the society has hooked on to the colour) it also makes these associations blurred. The protagonist of the film, the little boy Ludovic who is in his liminal stages of life where he begins to open up to the idea of sexuality, finds himself to relate to what generally the society understands as feminine traits. He likes to dress up in frocks, likes to make himself up and almost wants to feel like women until he is made to realize that it is not perfectly fine to do so.
We were made to watch the above film as a part of our French Theory class, where we were discussing Simon de Beauvoir's 'The Second Sex' and ideas of feminism. In the literature, SdB brings out the the construct of the 'woman', saying that a woman is made, a woman is a social construct. She goes on to analyse how the woman has been historically placed after the man, and gives a number of examples from historical references that have continued to affect the perception of the woman as the second sex. She uses psychoanalytic theories and goes on to open up cognition systems in children to question when a body realizes and becomes conscious of its biological exclusiveness.
I will put up some of our discussion in the class here, but to get back to the film, 'My Life in Pink' portrays a family struggling between allowing freedom for a body (biologically produced by it) to be like it wants to be versus what the society expects it to be. Ludovic's mother initially supports the boy's different behaviour. She feels it's a passing transient feeling for her child. Ludovic continues to engage with his feelings and goes on to develop a liking for his Father's boss's son who studies in his class. He openly expresses in his innocence, to his parents, that he would eventually get married to this boy.
In a society where roles of males and females are so strictly defined, the family gradually gets in to complications. Ludovic's father loses his job to his boss (who holds his own social position), who doesnot want to either accept his son's eccentric likings too. A blow on thier stomach, the mother realizes that her son's odd social behaviour is affecting far beyond what is just thought to be the issue of an individual body, and she expects it to be rectified. Thus, the psychologist is also involved to correct Ludovic's orientation issues.
There are several layers in the film and the prime one is that which raises questions that SdB raises of gender v/s sex. Ludovic, in the film has mixed up his biological identity with his social one. He is in those stages of life where he is just beginning to gain consciousness about his body and its realtionship to the world outside it. What initially seems to be an effortless assumption of his body turns out to be quite a complex reality for him. This reality pushes him to quietitude, seclusion and makes him introvert.
The film sensitively deals with the difficulties a body encounters while it constructs its identity. This identity for most of us is often socially and politically masked. The film questions this mask through innocent ignorance. It raises questions of whether we can really be free - to make choices for ourselves, since much of our self is already constructed before we gain consciousness.
