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The Wild Boys (Bertrand Mandico, 2017)
🕑 Added 2018-12-12 17:05:43 +0000 UTC
The "wild boys" are women.
(That's a "spoiler," but it's clear.)
Mandico plays with gender but
it's retrograde, I fear.
Wild boys join a crusty captain,
and he takes them captive
to an island that is queer.
He tries to break them,
with estrogen and shame.
Wild Boys! (Wild Boys!)
(This is one for the "forced feminization" canon, but there's an undercurrent of humiliation that comes along with these young men becoming young women -- being restricted to a diet of hairy vaginal fruit, being able to quench their thirst only with the ejaculate from penile projections from a tree, etc. Even though four of the five boys embrace their new female form, there's a creepy sense that Mandico is mocking actual gender transition. Penises just fall off like rotten appendages, revealing spanking-new vaginas underneath. There is a ramshackle, Jack Smith quality to the whole film, which seems to undercut any attempt to take it seriously, but this in itself seems like special pleading, as though all-encompassing parody and gender-flux is Mandico's way of absolving himself of any responsibility. I know that sounds like I'm being a killjoy, but so be it. This film just feels smarmy and entitled. But then again, it's Cahiers' #1 for the year, so what do I know.)
