She Male Snails

4.0 / 10

(4 votes)

Caught between two genders, the artist Eli Leven and Ester Martin Bergsmark touch and caress each other, while they bath together in clouds of steam. A persuasive voice-off describes the often hard and painful growing process, which led them to choose to be neither males nor females. But something else entirely. While memories of adolescences scarred by homophobia and discrimination are presented, the audience is also captivated by poetic evocations of bodies, of snowy woods, water, nature, and snails: the symbol of androgyny. This movie moves the audience profoundly. It is a hymn to sexual fluidity, which reveals the search for the true self, rendered through the use of contrasting, vivid, and often acid bright photography. Intended as a television portrait of the transgender artist Eli Leven, it is a psychedelic docu-fiction, a hybrid movie inspired by Derek Jarman's Sebastian.

Country:

Denmark,

Sweden

Genre:

Documentary

Duration:

75 minutes

Year:

2012

Director:

Ester Martin Bergsmark

Cast:
Ester Martin Bergsmark

Self

Varg Holmdahl

Pojktant in snow

Eli Levén

Self

Theo Walther

Pojktant by bonfire

Josef Waldfogel

Boy

Crew:
Anna-Maria Kantarius

Producer

Ester Martin Bergsmark

Director

Ester Martin Bergsmark

Writer

Ester Martin Bergsmark

Cinematography

Ester Martin Bergsmark

Editor