Arts & Entertainment
Kick Up the Dust
Mixed Messages from
Rogue Amazons
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Directed by Kimberly Pierce Screenplay by Kimberly Pierce and Andy Bienen Starring Hillary Swank, Chlo Sevigny, Peter Sarsgaard and Brendan Sexton, III 116 minutes, distributed by Fox Home Entertainment on VHS and DVD |
Is it an oxymoron to say that you loved a movie but didn’t like watching it? In the case of “Boys Don’t Cry,” audience members squirm and jerk about throughout the film; some even turn away from the screen and shield their eyes. Yet nearly everyone leaving the theater offers up glowing reviews: Compelling. Amazing. Riveting. Masterful. Heart-wrenching. Gut-wrenching.
“Boys Don’t Cry” is based on the true-life story of Brandon Teena, a young transgendered person who was brutally murdered in Nebraska back in 1993. As audience members, we follow the female Teena Brandon as she becomes Brandon Teena, the handsome boy aching to have a shot at a new life in the world.
In co-writing the script, director Kimberly Peirce undertook extensive research and interviewed many of the people who had known Brandon Teena. Much to her credit, “Boys Don’t Cry” doesn’t seek to analyze or explain Brandon’s transgendered nature. There are no transformational montage sequences culled from the family photo album, no home movies spliced together to document peculiar tendencies. Peirce intended to honor the “emotional truth” of Brandon’s life, which itself was constantly being fictionalized. “I think people are always emotionally truthful, even when they lie,” Peirce wrote in the film’s production notes. “The lies add texture to your understanding of the person telling them.”
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This texture is perfectly captured in Hilary Swank’s Oscar-winning performance. As Brandon, she strides onto the scene with the full force of fact, not fabrication. Though we as viewers may pause momentarily to judge Swank’s transformational achievement, the effect succeeds mostly because it isn’t yet fully realized. As Brandon, she brings both swagger and swish to the role, arousing the suspicions of those around him while charming away their fears. Swank demonstrates that rare capacity to project simultaneously a character’s interior thoughts and exterior posturing.
Dogged by a criminal past, Brandon leaves his Nebraska hometown and takes up with a new group of friends in Falls City. An outsider from the start, his initiation is hard-earned and constantly in question. Eventually, Brandon role-plays his way into the heart of Lana, one of the local girls who, like him, dreams of leaving her chaotic home life behind. The lighting in the film makes Lana look both jaded and jaundiced at times, a visual complement to Chloe Sevigny’s already dead-on interpretation.
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From there the story blossoms and wilts simultaneously. Brandon’s newfound zest for life contrasts sharply with our own sense of his impending doom. Brandon either misses or ignores all warning signs along his way. A tension grows between his own process of becoming and the unraveling lives of those around him. Our own sympathies amplify all that’s at stake in the film and heighten the sense of revulsion we experience at the film’s violent conclusion.
Though filmed in Texas, “Boys Don’t Cry” evokes the gritty reality of lower-class Nebraska. In Falls City, when you run into trouble, you try to hide in the dust cloud kicked up behind you. The faster you travel, the bigger the cloud. The trick is to keep moving.
For Brandon, travel symbolizes both escape and return, the two-lane highway that runs not only from east to west, but from male to female as well. Throughout the movie, sped-up shots of car lights at night disorient the viewer. Like Brandon, we’re led to feel as though we’re being taken on some kind of joyride. Despite the thrill, there’s the accompanying worry that we’re not completely in control, a fact made clear when Brandon unwittingly agitates hot-tempered John Lotter on just such a ride.
Moments like these keep audience members clutching at their armrests throughout the film. As Brandon’s world begins to crumble around him, we are powerless to help. When he walks into a room in which his secret has just been revealed, his affable smile makes him seem all the more tragic. We can either watch in horror as the scene unfolds, or turn away completely.
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Neither option offers us comfort or resolution, nor should it. Brandon’s rape and subsequent murder remain reprehensible acts of violence. Any other depiction in the film of those final days would have felt like betrayal. Brandon did not sacrifice his life to become some kind of icon; it was stolen from him, plain and simple. “I knew I couldn’t rectify his death,” Peirce said, “but I thought I could bring about some understanding...I had to make sense of it. I felt I had to bring Brandon to life.”
To do this, Peirce purposefully reached beyond the facts of the story and looked for scenes and images which would resonate with the film’saudience, herself included. “I realized I had to look for where Brandon’s myth intersected with the truth of my own life and experience, and from that distill the underlying emotional truth of this story. In this way, I had the opportunity to tell something truer than what really happened and to distill a whole life into two entertaining hours. It was a process of turning truth into fiction, then back into a deeper truth.”
Even with such grand aspirations, “Boys Don’t Cry” succeeds with the highest marks. Because of its emotional impact, the video may not be a frequent choice for repeated viewing, nor is it necessarily suitable for young people or those grappling with their own issues of identity and orientation. Even so, this remarkable film deserves a place of honor in any queer video collection. It’s a powerful movie worthy of being shared with friends and family members for years to come.