Ma Vie En Rose

February 23, 2000

You gotta give it to the French. They know how to jerk the heartstrings.

I can’t believe that this film made me cry. Yes, you heard me right – I cried like a fuckin’ tiddy baby. And I’m not even ashamed to say so. I really didn’t think that it would affect me this much, but to my surprise, it did. I felt sympathetic towards Ludovic, but I also felt sympathy for his family. What would I do if my little boy wanted to be a little girl? I don’t know. I really don’t.

It was such a wonderfully colorful film. I have been a sucker for pink lately, as anyone who has seen my wardrobe recently can attest to, and there was a lot of it in the film. (Well, duh! What’s the title?) I was also fairly amused by the “Pam & Ben” theme throughout. It makes me feel good to know that Barbie is a worldwide phenomenom. Every girl (and boy) should be a Barbie Girl. I was a bit confused by the locales in the film. I really didn’t envision France looking so much like suburban America. I imagine that France does have suburbs, I guess I never really thought about it before. I had pictured France to be either quaint city scenes with cafes and museums or poor ghetto countrysides…I am so provincial, it makes me want to shit.

It seems that all indie arthouse films these days center around gay themes, in one way or another. It’s so…trendy. It was a first for me to see it from such a young point of view, which I liked. This film never could have been made in America. The poor kid would have been so stigmatized that he never could have gotten another film role.

I was so made fun of when I snagged this film from work. I explained what it was about and Doni was like “Fuck the French! Leave it to the French to make a film about some gay little kid. Fuckin’ Frogs!” Or something to that effect. Yeah, leave it to the French…