Sexual Confusion Handled With A Light Touch

If you were asked to guess what Western European country most resembles a typical 1950s American neighborhood, Belgium wouldn’t automatically come to mind.

If it came up at all.

Yet writer-director Alain Berliner creates a virtual Belgian Levittown in his debut film, “Ma Vie en Rose” (“My Life in Pink”).

It isn’t a coincidence. Berliner’s setting is intended to capture every cliche that we’ve come to accept as the prototypical ‘50s-era community of American conformity. It’s a world of bread-winning fathers, stay-at-home moms and kids who go to school, play and get into trouble all in a suitably normal way.

Which is why Ludovic (George du Fresne) stands out so clearly. What is more unsuitable, if not unseemly, than a boy who is convinced he will grow up to be a girl?

And that is the crux of Berliner’s film. Ludovic isn’t confused about his sexual orientation. Yet to Berliner, Belgians have as much difficulty confronting the complexities of sexuality as any red-blooded American.

What Berliner employs as a plot isn’t as important as the feelings he wants to communicate, yet his film does follow a specific path.

Ludovic is the youngest of four children belonging to a family obsessed, like its neighbors, with appearances. Father (Jean-Philippe Ecoffey) has moved into a new neighborhood at the suggestion of his boss, and it becomes clear that everything will be OK - as long as the newcomers do what’s needed to fit in.

And with only a little anxiety, they do. Until, that is, the moment Ludovic steps into the welcoming party dressed in high heels and earrings and boasting a painted mouth. What a joker this pre-teen is, his parents laugh.

But Ludovic isn’t laughing. He’s serious. And when that becomes all too clear, his family finds that its subscription to Welcome Neighbor magazine has been canceled. So to speak.

If this were all that “Ma Vie en Rose” had to offer, it would be nothing special. Variations on such themes have provided fodder for television sitcoms since the 1970s.

But Berliner is after more. Not only is young du Fresne’s protagonist a beguilingly sweet presence (this is the talented young actor’s film debut), he is the only one in the entire movie who seems in tune with himself. While everyone else looks outward for validation, Ludovic seems confused that no one else sees what he does - that he’s really a girl trapped in a boy’s body.

The initial and ongoing betrayal by his friends and family forces Ludovic to see the real, all-too ugly side of life. Caught between their affection for this innocent child and the condemnation of people whose acceptance they crave, Ludovic’s parents and siblings play fast and loose with their love. One moment they accept him; the next they blame him for their every misfortune.

This, then, is what it must be like for children who grow up in an atmosphere of mixed sexual messages. How confusing it must be to feel acceptance only when you’ve denied your very nature.

“Ma Vie en Rose” is presented as a comedy, and Berliner transmits his message with all the lightness of magical realism, a fantastic realm where it is possible to literally crawl into a billboard. But overall, even with a feel-good ending that smacks of irony, Berliner’s film is no more a comedy than Dickens’ “Hard Times” is a self-help treatise.

It wears Ludovic’s sadness like face paint.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: “Ma Vie en Rose” ***-1/2 Locations: Lincoln Heights Cinemas Credits: Directed and co-written (with Chris vander Stappen) by Alain Berliner, starring George du Fresne, Michele Laroque, Jean Philippe Ecoffey, Helene Vincent, Julien Riviere, Christina Barget Subtitles: In French with English subtitles Running time: 1:28 Rating: R