As society comes to grips with the reality of the spectral nature of sexuality, more and more main stream movies and TV series are being created to depict the lives of individuals who identify on the LGBTQ spectrum. Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl (2015) is a film that examines the sexual metamorphosis from man to woman of the principal character, Einar Wegener. Though the film focuses primarily on Einar, Hooper constantly reminds the audience of the fluidity of sexuality that exists for other characters, especially Einar’s wife, Gerda.
Throughout the entirety of The Danish Girl, Hooper reiterates the gender duality theme through carefully crafted mise-en-scène and frame composition. For example, Hooper creates an interplay between the human body and the surrounding geometry. The rigidity of the buildings as well as the harsh vertical and horizontal lines making up the geometry of the rooms in the home where Einar and Gerda live create a sense of restriction and harshness that confine the bodies of the characters in the manner in which the masculine dominated society of the 1920s restrained any attempt at sexual fluidity. At the same time, these geometric restrictions are juxtaposed by repeated shots which emulate impressionistic paintings and are full of the soft pastels of femininity. The resulting effect is a visual duality that mimics the duality of Einar’s experience: a woman trapped in a man’s body.
Perhaps the most powerful scene in the film occurs when Einar stands in front of a mirror and completely undresses himself. Hooper expertly wields the camera moving down the body, never fully showing the male genitalia, but following the path of Einar’s hand. When the hand reaches the location of Einar’s genitals at the same time that the camera does, Einar pushes his genitals out of sight and in between his legs, creating the illusion of female genitalia. The camera lingers on Einar’s full body while reflected in the mirror, and the deception of the form of a woman is compelling. Hooper uses reflection or “mirroring” in another powerful scene when Einar visits a brothel where he watches a prostitute through a glass window as she strips. Einar then begins to emulate her movements in an attempt to learn the female manner of seduction. The woman pauses in bewilderment, but then resumes her seductive poses; however, there is an exaggeration in her movement as she acts and simultaneously watches Einar, almost as if the prostitute knows that Einar’s intent is one of wanting to learn. As a result, rather than becoming an erotic moment it becomes one in which there is a woman to woman connection.
Hooper also explores the inter-woman connection in terms of the complexity of the relationship between Einar and Gerda. Hooper often shows the couple in intricately framed shots, in which they are divided, but still have a lingering attachment. Hooper frequently uses combinations of shot reverse shots such that Einar and Gerda, despite being in the same film space, are portrayed separately. Even towards the end of the film when Gerda and Einar, who has now become Lili, are arguably closest emotionally, they are separated by a thin veil dividing their bed, yet still have their hands intertwined and enveloped by the same fabric that defined the moment that Einar first became fascinated with women’s clothing. This repetition of Einar and Gerda as separate, but still linked together, leaves the audience to wonder if it is just “love” or recognition of womanhood in each other. As Gerda says when explaining why she married Einar; “It was like kissing myself.”
Hooper allows Gerda to explore her own uncertain sexuality by allowing her to engage in role reversal. Gerda creates opportunities for Einar and her to switch gender roles. Early in the film, even before it becomes clear that Einar is transgender, Gerda, who like Einar is a painter by profession, asks him to put on some female clothing to serve as a female model for a painting she needs to finish. Then she coaxes Einar into dressing up like a woman to play a joke during a society outing. In another very overtly roll reversing scene, Gerda is completely nude and standing over Einar’s form that is still dressed. Einar’s body image has a strangely feminine allure, and he is also trying to conceal the fact that he is wearing a woman’s nightgown underneath his masculine garments. Gerda takes on the male role of undressing Einar, who has clearly begun to adopt a feminine persona. At the same time, Einar accentuates his femininity by being coy and trying to keep covered up. Gerda’s role reversal does not happen only in Einar’s presence. Hooper utilizes a low angle camera angle or an eye line match with almost all of the male characters that Gerda encounters emphasizing the power position that she has over them. Finally, Gerda becomes successful only when she starts creating portraits of Einar as Lili, suggesting that she is able to express passion only through an expression of the feminine form.
The Danish Girl reminds the audience that the enigma of sexual identity is not a modern concept, but one that is an inextricable part of human nature. Hooper delivers a film that is not only beautiful to watch, but beautifully depicts the inexorable nature of love and human identity.
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