i don’t want to be a woman
by Douglas Messerli
Axel
Barranco (screenwriter and director) Deseo (Wish) / 2020 (17
minutes)
Alejandro (Pablo Flores) and Lucia (Matilde Castañeda) are on a class
trip at the National Museum where there is currently a Mayan exhibition that
will be ending the next day. Both are bored and disinterested in the trip
except that the people to who they’re both attracted to are there also, for
Pablo his fellow classmate Javier (Héctor Marino).
Their teacher’s announcement that they have to now enter the show allows
what Alejandro perceives as a special moment when they can actually approach
the boys they desire, asking them if they might accompany them in the show.
Alejandro goes first, striking up a brief conversation with Javier, who seems
affable enough and readily agrees to join Alejandro.
Their brief discussions are rather aborted, Javier saying that he’s been
considering his future, and Alejandro, obviously too nervous to even respond,
saying there nothing happening with him. As they enter the darkened rooms,
Javier asks if his friend actually thinks these works are magical, and after a
pause Alejandro says, “Yes,” staring intensely at his friend as the other
observes the statues and other artifacts. Alejandro suggests it’s getting hot,
and pulls out a notebook, Javier handing him a pen so that he might take notes.
One can perceive that even that small gesture excites Alejandro.
The
boy tries to get up the courage and finally does ask Javier, “Do you want to go
out...,” his friend immediately responding “Yes, I’m hungry,” turning to leave,
while Alejandro, now alone, finishes his sentence “...on a date with me?”
The
next morning when he awakens to his usual 7:00 clock alarm he gets out of bed
to discover only dresses in his closet, and when he looks into the mirror he
has long hair and, so he discovers, small breasts. He is now clearly someone
different, Alejandra (Giovanna Jiménez), who, in delight, applies makeup and
dresses in a completely different way for school that morning, which even her
best girlfriend recognizes as a change: “How did you get so pretty?”
Before she can even get comfortably ensconced in her classroom Javier
asks her if they can study together and a few seconds later invites her out to
dinner that night.
At
the restaurant, she is delighted for the company and begins small talk in a way
that all first- time daters do, both ordering similarly barbecued hot wings, he
an orangeade and she a lemonade.
She asks him why he asked her out on date and
Javier responds that he has always seen her as someone different and special,
surely pleasing the inner Alejandro.
When she asks him what he planning on studying, however, he suggests two
quite radically different alternatives, the first that he would like to study
acting and the second that he may join his father as an accountant. On what
does it depend? He’d like to study acting but it’s a family tradition to be an
accountant, his father, grandfather, etc. which is the direction his family
prefers.
Alejandra suggests that he should choose that which makes him the
happiest. But he finds it difficult to be loyal to himself. If he would study
acting, he answers her query, he might study in New York, the name of which
lights up Alejandra’s face: that was where Madonna got her start?
Like the soccer player, asks Javier, clearly having no clue who Madonna
is.
“No, no, no,” she immediately corrects him, “A homosexual role. Not a
faggot role. Homosexual is the way you say it.”
But
he cannot get her drift. “Homosexual, faggot, gay....”
“No, no, no. They’re aren’t synonyms,” she interrupts. “It’s just
homosexual, period.”
“Whatever...it’s just a disease.”
The
waiter delivers their drinks.
He
repeats that it is a disease, Alejandra again correcting him, “It’s not a
disease.”
“I
have read about it,” he insists.
“No, it’s not a disease. OK. It’s just a preference.” Suddenly rising,
she turns back to him: “And I can’t believe you don’t even know who Madonna
is.”
She continues: “You should study acting. There are lots of roles for
assholes.”
A
figure is in bed, and the alarm rings, this morning at 11:04. Alejandro
awakens, checks out his chest and peaks in his pajamas just to see his cock
before he rises and dances with joy. He is still a gay boy, happy to be who he
is.
Los Angeles, July 20, 2021
Reprinted from World Cinema Review (July
2021).
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