XXY

XXY. Dir. Lucía Puenzo. Argentina, France, Spain, 2007. Dur. 86 min.

XXY (pronounced "equis equis i") is the first film by Lucia Puenzo, the daughter of Luis Puenzo, the director of the Oscar-winning Historia oficial (1984); Puenzo serves as the producer of XXY. This is undoubtedly the Argentine "film of the year," with the by now ubiquitous Ricardo Darin and Valeria Bertuccelli as parents of a hermaphrodite whom they have raised since childhood as a girl. Now a teenager, Alex (note the gender-ambivalent name) refuses to continue taking the hormones that would suppress fully developed primary and secondary male sex characteristics. Despite the reservations of the father (both parents are marine biologists), the mother has invited for a visit to their remote home by the marine research station a old friend and her husband, who is a plastic surgeon with an interest in reconstructive surgery willing to remove Alex's male sex organs so that "she" can live successfully, it is alleged, as a woman. Alex will have none of this proposal, and part of the drama of the film is whether the surgeon and his wife will be able to convince Alex's parents to pressure their child to have the operation.

The surgeon and his wife arrive accompanied by Álvaro, who is the same age as Alex, and Alex immediately decides to come on to him. Álvaro, who is an insecure youth-apparently also sexually-resists at first, but a major moment in the film is when the two of them begin to have sex. Alvaro does not know that Alex is a hermaphrodite, but before he really knows what is happening, he has been penetrated by Alex; he accepts this arrangement of their bodies and will later confess that he enjoyed the sexual act and wishes to repeat it. Alex draws back...