Girl (2018 film), a movie about a transgender ballet dancer

[Sirona]

Just watched Girl (2018) , a Belgian arthouse movie about a transgender ballet dancer. I guess the director uses the hard training as a ballet dancer as a metaphor for the transformation of the physical body. When I read one summary, it said it was about a girl named Lara who had only danced male roles so far, and who aspires for both professional ballet and sex change, so I expected Lara to be a tomboy who hopes to become a transman. This seemed intriguing to me, but in fact it's the opposite. Lara is the name of a 16 year-old transwoman performed by a very meager adolescent boy. She dances until her feet are bleeding and at the end tries to cut off her genitalia with a pair of scissors. I think this is a hint her sex change may fail as well as her dancing. She's told by her teacher that she is too old to learn pointe dancing, which is a requirement for the ballet school, and which cisgender girls learn at the age of 12. The girls around her first seem to accept her. They let her dress in the girls' locker room, but then they "invite" her to use the shower, and in the end they make her show her genitalia to them in a style of "Show me yours, I showed you mine."

I felt reminded of Black Swan, which is about a ballet dancer (Natalie Portman) who is suggested to be lesbian and into self-harming who also exploits her body for the sake of becoming the best dancer. I also thought of Billy Elliot, the story of an 11 year-old boy who is also into ballet dancing and who, as an adult, dances in an all-male version of Swan Lake. As a kid, he has a gay best friend, and it is left open whether Billy will become homosexual himself as an adult.

Guess I just watched too many ballet movies, but I thought some of you might be interested in this topic.