Trans Memoria

Bluesky

The Latin prefix trans means "across", "beyond" or "on the other side of" - definitions worth bearing in mind going into this highly personal essay from director Victoria Verseau. Documentaries about the transgender experience, especially those made for television, have historically seen gender-affirmation surgery as a celebratory endpoint but Verseau’s contemplative and often melancholic film is all about what lies on the other side of it.

The director had the operation in Thailand back in 2012 and courageously includes raw footage from the time, discussing her fears before the procedure and pain in the early days of her recovery. Now several years later she returns to the hotel in Thailand where she stayed. The Swedish filmmaker is there as an act of pilgrimage, of sorts, as she grieves and tries to come to terms with the death, by suicide, of her French friend Meril, who had her vaginoplasty operation at the same time. Accompanying Verseau are Aamina and Athena who are nearer the beginning of their transition journey.

The women talk about the heat, which contrasts with the flat grey light that creeps into the hotel spaces. Not bleak but drifting towards the down-at-heel, there’s an air of loneliness enhanced by occasional meditative sequences featuring everything from crabs on a beach to insects clambering over rotted fruit, and discarded medical paraphernalia.

Although intimate and personal – “I’m not sharing what happened with anyone but you,” she says near the start of the film – Verseau embraces the opinions of Aamina and Athena, avoiding the trap of generalisation. It seems they were initially intended, at least in part, as stand-ins for Verseau and Meril in reconstructions but soon Ameena notes she doesn’t want to be “a character” if this is a documentary. It is to Verseau’s credit that she allows such discussions to be in the final film. These women may have a shared experience but they are also shown have distinctive individual views just like everyone else.

While Verseau talks about how crucial the surgery was to her mental health, the complexity of the emotions experienced afterwards is also made clear. The painful mechanics of her post-operative vaginal exercises, the fact that dark thoughts don’t just vanish as the anaesthetic wears off. The women’s honesty leaps from the screen as they frankly discuss their feelings, supportive of one another but also not afraid to disagree. There is quite graphic depiction of medical moments in the film, which may prove a hard watch for some but this consideration of Verseau’s own experience is clear-eyed and poetic in equal measure. Verseau's film celebrates the fact there’s freedom in choice and that includes the freedom to not always feel as though you’re living happily ever after.