Juliana Mango | Fragile / 2014

a fairy tale

by Douglas Messerli

 

Juliet Juliana Mango and Juliana Mango (screenplay), Juliana Mango (director) Fragile / 2014 [8

minutes]

 

This film about a young boy, just slightly exploring his gender, begins in an obviously suburban community, where Alex (Alex Bryans) sits at a filthy bus stop, flower in his hand, waiting for the bus that will take him to school. He puts the flower behind his ear, but just before it arrives removes it and stomps on it, grinding it with his foot against the asphalt. He clearly know he is not safe displaying his love of such a beautiful thing, already sporting a cut upon his lip, and perhaps signs of other beatings around his eyes.

    He arrives home with small note posted to the wall by his father: he’s gone to the pub suggesting his son eat fish and chips at home that evening, signifying that his dad is probably an alcoholic; and we can already predict some of the gentle boy’s many dilemmas.

    After his couch-bound dinner, Alex takes out a precious box from which he retrieves a beautiful white gown (perhaps his now divorced mother’s wedding gown), but he quickly hides it again under the bed as he hears his father returning.

    His father Jim’s (Russell Lambe) first words are a tough “I caught you again, didn’t I?” and proceeds to lecture him on toughing up or he’ll always get the shit kicked out of you. No kindness, no love, nearly a slap in the face as if tough drunken “love” was all he might be able to offer.

    The following day, with a Barbie doll in hand, he realizes that he must have missed the bus, and instead rushes off to a local playground where to his delight, he smells the flower he has in his hand and plays contentedly with his doll. Somehow he applies some eye-shadow and paints his nails purple, without any possible explanation where he got these supplies and could possibly wish to do so in a playground, knowing that he might have to return home to immediately remove all evidence. But then, we have to assumes, is a kind of child’s fantasy, a representation of who we would like to be, not a literal presentation.

    This time, when he returns, his brute of father is marching around their kitchen/dining space, checking out their refrigerator, when his son arrives home with doll in hand. As the boy drops the doll, his father erupts, slugging him in the face. Alex rushes out of the house, aghast; yet we gather he has been treated the same way at his school and home previously.

      Bottle of beer in hand, Jim sits down to ponder what he has just done.

     Meanwhile, we find our young dreamer sitting at the bus stop where he waits most mornings to catch the bus to school. He is now joined by a seeming friend woman, Hollie (Jasmine Nibali), who watches him with a flower in hand. Alex tosses it away, perhaps in expectation of punishment for so full showing his fragility; but she picks it up and simply hands it back to him. She introduces herself and asks what his name is: he replies “Alexia,” to which she responds that the name is “very pretty.” As if by magic in this fantasy tale by the Mango twins, Alex/Alexi now packs up his back pack and seeming returns home, presumably, as the film’s tag description explains, “embarking on a voyage of self-discovery and contentment.”

     Yet we all know that in the suburbs of Perth, Australia such a journey is simply myth-building, and probably has very little to do with painful trip this young future woman will have to make. If only the writers could have found a more solid ground on which to place their story. It does no one any good, anymore, to tell fairy tales.

Los Angeles, August 25, 2026 | Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (August 2026).