Lola e o Mar

This is a strong performance by Mya Bollaers (a transgender actress in her debut award-winning role). Lola is a teenager who's getting up on her feet after being shunned by her family for coming out as transgender. She's predictably angry and volatile, but also tender and looking for love and acceptance. The film shows just over 24 hours in Lola's life when she reluctantly tries to reconcile with her father and they drive across Belgium towards their beach house. They'll have to weather a few storms - both literal and emotional - while attempting to restore their closeness and learn to understand each other.

I have no doubts, for a large public, Lola is a film about transgender young people, front the decision defining their life. Or about conflict between father and teen child. Or a film about reconciliation . Each way is just fair. But for me it is , first, a film about parenthood. Very easy, I felt the tension, doubts, angry, need to be kind, high need to understand to be cool and explicit and become, late , maybe, the expected father. Sure, I admire from few fists of years Benoit Magimel and I admire the beautiful job of Mya Bollaers. I felt the film like a simple confession .

I've never been a big fan of Benoit Magimel but I 've got to make amends : in a thankless part ,he really blew my mind ;so did his partner Mya Bollaers, a transgender in real life ,whose debut in the cinema was stunning ,and who was awarded a prize for most promizing new actress .

Philippe has always born a grudge against his son Lionel ;because,as he got his girlfriend pregnant ,he had to marry her and to give up his studies : thus he never became a physical education teacher and had to content himself with a hardware dealer job .Besides ,Lionel feels he's not the same gender as the gender .He's already begun a medical treatment and is to undergo an operation .

We know from the start that Lionel is to become a trans,but his father doesn't ; he considers his only son a sissy , he despises this effeminate degenerate and he's not the only one; the scene in the pharmacy is revealing : the chemist feels somewhat disgusted at this person who wants to get his hormones prescription fulfilled.And thus the father discovers what he considers a crying shame.The flashbacks about Lionel's childhood with his cousins are not gratuitous :from the start,he was different and the other boys' punching bag.

This is a road movie : the father has to carry out his late wife's wish , that her ashes be scattered at sea ;and Lionel who calls herself Lola now wants to accompany him for her last journey .As it takes place in Belgium ,the lines are now in French ,now in Flemish. On her rocky road ,Lionel/Lola will meet friendly faces : a young black man he's in love with -"I liked boys as a boy and so will I as a girl"-, a lesbian who welcomes father and son in her small hotel .... But the father is not prepared to accept the situation (the ashes in the gutter ,is it an accident?)

This is a marvelous plea for tolerance ,but it does not leave the viewer helpless or brooding : perhaps ,when they get to the sea,will there be some sunshine breaking through ? One feels that both are longing for affection ,now that mom is gone forever...