Seen as part of the local 'Erotica' festival, this sorely tested patience; yet is still worth seeking out for some interest and oddities - not least as a visual metaphor for what several feminist film critics* have assessed (accused!) the cinematic medium to be all about the male gaze ("woman as image; man as bearer of the look"*) and its updating of Freud's male 'castration anxiety' complex!
I'll note no more so as to not plot spoil, but the initial conceit here (don't read the synopsis etc.!) is rendered well in the actors' portrayals, main protagonist Vimila Pons especially, through to its feminist / transgender / castration denouement (á la 'Moebius' etc!)
The problem is, as transgender photogenic as the players here are, cinematically little occurs, and is rather more theatrical, at least up until our 'crew' arrive at a luscious, sensual (living?) island:
this is of interest as it was filmed on the French owned island paradise of Reunion (in the Indian Ocean), but although using its famous five(+) Cascade de Langevin waterfalls location as a back (projection?) lot, most action otherwise takes place on the beach, which with Reunion being a volcanic island, is even more impressive as the crewmates variously cavort on its volcanic black sand, since such could surely only have been filmed in very short time spans (e.g. just after sun up? Since, located almost at the equator, sunset takes just a matter of minutes); as otherwise that type of beach grain absorbs the sun to make it scaldingly ergo untouchably, hot very soon: it's also very scratchy, bitty!
So again, kudos to the actors there.
To the story: well, the luscious, sensual island with a miraculous, liberating - or fearfully emasculating, depending on your take on sexual identity! - is the conundrum to enthral you into seeing this rather dreamy (dreary? No, perish) concoction through to its end.
Even if I hadn't known the casting conceit at the beginning (don't read the synopses!) it truthfully, would have had me a little uncertain for awhile as the characters are introduced, but as soon as you're in the know, what's impressive, too, is that you can still believe they are what they purport to be, almost throughout (so good acting in that respect), to again, that lead 'actor' in particular, really right to 'their' very end.
If dreaminess, discursive transgender identity polemics is your thing - this is ideal: otherwise, self-indulgent meanderings.
*Freud's theories by way of Karen Hornley ('Feminine Psychology'), Laura Mulvey ('Visual Pleasures and the Narrative Cinema') and Barbara Creed ('Monstrous Feminine: Film, feminism and psychoanalysis'.) If you liked this film, check 'em out.
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