Yesterday I attended two more films in the Cinetopia Film Festival. Both were shown in Royal Oak at the same theater complex. Fortunately I had about 50 minutes between them for supper.
The first was the documentary A Polar Year. Anders of Denmark applies to be a teacher in Greenland, a Danish territory. He doesn’t take the assignment in the capital, but the one in the tiny village of 80 people. The functionary arranging things tells him he is to teach the children Danish – and he will have no need to learn the local language. That’s a sign of colonial mentality.
He has about a dozen elementary age students (classes for middle school and older are in the city). The students mostly ignore him because he seems to have nothing to add to their lives. He complains to parents that Asser, an 8 year old boy, has missed a lot of class and it will be hard to make it up. The parents reply Asser was hunting with his grandfather. The boy will learn more and more important things from his grandfather than from Anders.
And, indeed, we watch grandfather in action.
Anders knows he’s not a respected member of the village. He asks for lessons in the local language. He asks for training in managing a sled and dogs. He joins a couple of men who take Asser on a hunting trip, where he watches the men build an igloo when a storm rises and where they decide to not shoot a polar bear because she is with cubs. I wondered what the men thought of riding three sleds pulled by dogs through the snow as a helicopter flew overhead filming them.
When Anders took the job his parents were disappointed. Later, we find out why – his father was the fifth generation farming their land and expected Anders to be the sixth. But Anders wasn’t interested. Taking up teaching in Greenland was his way to get off the farm.
When spring comes Anders and Asser are good friends. The film ends then. Anders’ contracted year in Greenland ended in the summer of 2016 and we are told that in 2018 he was still there.
The second film was the documentary Man Made. There really is such a thing as a body building contest for transgender men. To qualify one must identify as a transgender male and it doesn’t matter how far along one is in his transition. We follow four men who intend to enter the contest and follow them for several months leading up to it. And we find that life is … messy.
In those months Dominick has his top surgery – the removal of his breasts. He doesn’t work out as much as he’d like during recovery, so isn’t as lean as he would like to be. He is adopted and his parents are supportive of his transition. After the surgery he finds his birth mother and has a reunion with her. He warns her of the change in the little girl she had named Dominique.
Rese becomes homeless so he and his preschool son, who calls him Mommy, live with his parents. He finds a job and starts a relation with a transgender woman who also has a child. They move to Baltimore, where the headlines are full of murders of transgender women. They don’t feel so safe.
Mason seems most dedicated to the sport, complete with following a rigid diet. I don’t remember a lot of his complicated love life and backstory. I do remember him telling his fellow contestants to be thankful for the moment. They’re in an environment that is safe for them being trans. They don’t have to hide their bodies, instead are able to put them on display. That includes displaying their top surgery scars or displaying that they haven’t done the surgery yet.
Kennie is just beginning his transition. He holds a party to celebrate his first testosterone injection. The cupcakes are all decorated with “It’s a boy!” Kennie’s partner is lesbian. So far in their relationship having a butch woman as her partner is just fine, but she frets that as Kennie transitions and his body becomes more masculine she won’t remain attracted to him. His parents aren’t supportive.
The afternoon before the competition was the Atlanta Pride Parade, in which several contestants participated. Along the parade route were protest groups yelling such things as, “If you’re born a man, your a man. If you’ve got that Y [chromosome], you’re a man.” This inspires Dominick to be more of an activist. We then see the competition, of just 11 men. We hear a bit of the other contestants’ backstories. I won’t tell you who won.
Dominick was there in the theater and after the showing told us about how he met the filmmaker (at the previous bodybuilding event) and appreciated it was a trans filmmaker who was telling the story of trans people.
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