The Danish Girl.

Tom Hooper’s return to form after the dreadfully disappointing film version of Les Miserables (2012) is a fictionalised retelling of the story of a very brave and courageous human being. Based on David Ebershoff's novel of the same name, The Danish Girl (2015) is the story of Lille Elbe who was credited as one of the first identifiable recipients of sex reassignment surgery.

Lilli Elbe.

Born Einar Magnus Andreas Wagener in Venice, Denmark in 1882 as a male, met his future wife at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and married in 1904. Einar specialised in landscape painting while he wife Gerda illustrated books and fashion magazines. Einar love of dressing as a woman started when he was asked to wear stockings and heels so he could fill in for the ‘legs and feet’ of Gerda's absentee model Anna Larssen. Following this one simple incident he stared dressing, and in time identifying as a woman. He became the beautiful female model featured in his wife's best known paintings and accompanied her to many social functions in Paris where they moved in 1912. It was after this period in 1930 that this transgender pioneer Lilli Elbe went to Germany for what was at that time experimental sex reassignment surgery which would involve four operations over two years.

 

Gerda Wegener's portrait of her husband.

Gerda's self portrait.

The film stars Eddie Redmayne as Einar Wegerer/Lilli Elbe who was nominated for Best Actor in the 2016 Academy Awards and Swedish actress Alicia Vikander as Gerda Wegenar/Gottlieb for which she quite rightly won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Also included in the cast is Ben Whishaw as Claude Lejeune Lilli Elbe's lover, Sebastian Koch as Doctor Kurt Warnekros who performed the ground breaking surgery and Amber Heard as Anna Larssen Gerda's model and friend.

 

Alicia Vikander as Gerda Wegenar. 

There was some criticism for casting a cis actor in the main role but I believe Redmayne pulled it off but there certainly more to the story than was portrayed in Ebershoff’s book. Although it has been opined that Lucinda Coxen's screenplay allows a more truthful reflection of the story it still does not tell the whole story including the fact that Gerda Gottlieb had lesbian lovers leading to some critics accusing the film of being LGBT sanitised. A well-intentioned film that in my opinion does not go far enough.

The Lives of Others.

After my recent visit to Berlin I decided to re-watch one of my favourite foreign language movies, one I originally saw at the cinema on its release and a couple of times since on DVD. The Lives of Others (2006) is a psychological political thriller set in 1984 and the debut feature film of German born director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck who also wrote and co-produced the movie. The movie focuses on how the Socialist Unity Party of Germany managed to keep its East Berlin citizens under surveillance. The process of collecting information on the inhabitants of the GDR was carried out by the Ministry of State Security (MfS) or, as the East German people called them the Stasi.

 

The 'Stasi' Officer.

The director tells the story through three main characters.  The first being a Stasi officer played by Ulrich Muhe who was born in East Germany in 1953 and sadly died shortly after the films release.  After German reunification Muhe allegedly discovered that he was under surveillance, not only by four fellow actors but also his wife Grollmann who was registered as an IM. The cold and efficient character he plays, Captain Gerd Wiesler is tasked by his superiors to keep a well-known East German playwright and academic along with his actress lover under surveillance and how this changes his outlook on his life and work. Sebastian Koch plays the playwright Georg Dreyman and Martina Gedeck portrays his actress lover Christa-Maria Sieland. The movie demonstrates the efficiency in the way MfS suspects were observed and how extensive records were kept of their lives, activities and the people they mixed with. As witnessed in the movie it was not always done for the right reasons.  

 

The Playwright and Academic.

The Actress.

Released 17 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall The Lives of Others won the 2006 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was the first serious treatment of this period by the West after a series of comedies such as Goodbye, Lenin! (2003) and Sonnenallee (1999). The movie is very highly regarded for its convincing script with every line meticulously thought out, the brilliant acting of all concerned but notable because of the accuracy of the sets and its factual atmosphere. This was reinforced by my recent visit to both the Stasi Prison at Berlin-Hohenschonhausen and the headquarters of the GDR Ministry for State Security (MfS) that from 1960/61 until 1989 was one of the most secure areas in East Berlin. (For more information on both see Berlin Diary 2016). I cannot recommend this film highly enough both as dramatic entertainment and as a perfect example of modern history and if you have not seen it I would suggest you put that right at your earliest convenience.  

Albatross.

You’ll know exactly what I mean when I describe watching a movie with a permanent grin plastered on your face? The latest film to inflict this condition was the British coming-of-age drama Albatross (2011) Niall Maccormicks debut feature film that’s set on the South Coast of England but filmed on the picturesque Isle of Man. His previous work has been in television including 2008’s award winning Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley.

A new lease of life for Beth.

Seventeen-year-old Emelia Conan Doyle gets a job as a cleaner at the Cliff House Hotel. The hotel is home to a author who has suffered writers block for twenty years and his dysfunctional family which includes young Posy, teenager Beth (Felicity Jones) and the long suffering and brittle Joa (Julia Ormond) wife and mother, ex-actress and now head cook and bottle washer at the hotel, to this ensemble our newly employed cleaning lady injects a renewed enthusiasm for life. The writer Jonathan (The Lives of Others (2006) Sebastian Koch) falls for Emelia while dispensing creative writing lessons in his private study. Beth strikes up a close friendship with Emelia persuading her to accompany her to Oxford University where Beth is to take part in the entrance interviews. While there and under the tutorage of Emelia, the naive Oxford hopeful learns that there is more to life than studying!

Oxford visit.

Reading some of the reviews you get the impression that the British critics were not convinced by film but I must differ. Although the narrative was a little lightweight I found it to be a very pleasurable and amusing 90 minutes greatly helped by the pitch perfect performance from Jessica Brown Finlay as the charismatic Emelia. I agree that the plot’s important, but even with the best-written screenplays the cinemagoer is not always as entertained?   

Can Emelia unblock Johathan?