'The Danish girl' : a modern portrait of ahead of time bravery.

The history of movie making is filled with many great productions telling a tale as old as time, the quest to find one's true self: it definitely sounds a subject broad and complicated enough.
One of the core aspects of our human journey is the sexual sphere, something that throughout history has been repeatedly suppressed, shamed or even punished: even today, at the dawn of the 21th century, it still is something we somehow consider deeply embarassing to address openly within society.
Many among us have the habit of lying, even to ourself, about our true desires and pulsions: the result is a social system that often condemns anything that falls outside a certain view of how things should be and should look like.

In 2015 Tom Hooper's 'The Danish Girl', identity and sexuality are at the core of Lili Elbe's tue life story. 

Born Einar Wegener, a danish painter in the 1920's, married to a fellow painter named Gerda, Lili is not only the person Einar whishes to be, it is simply who she is. If being a trangender is somehow a painful state to be in our days, given the reluctancy of people to appreciate or even accept on'es quest to freedom, back in the 20s it was simply unheard of and ,to put it simply, an abomination.

When an overwhelming wave of dormant feelings bring Einar to the awareness of a deep internal conflict , the couple knows that things will never be the the same for them; Gerda feels at times like an intruder in her husband's new found life, experiencing a deep sense of loss.

Despite this premise, Gerda's love for her once 'husband', to use simplified terms, not only evolves into a new perspective, but she actually enables Lili's journey through emotional  and active support: Lili decides to undergo an extremely dangerous and painful surgery to finally match his body to her own perception of identity.

In terms of cinematic representation of this story,
the visuals are beautiful and fragile, dreamy and expressive: there's not an actual desire to bring it into a more raw, and perhaps more realistic narration. 
One could therefore argue that the movie glosses over the real messiness , pain and confusion that the couple experienced through their journey: I think that there was an interest in telling such a story to the wide public, and not much space left to let it breath and unfold to a more realistic degree. I enjoyed and appreciated the intention : the actors' performances were up to the finest standards, the scenery just wonderful. I really hope that we'll have the chance to see more of such films, telling such stories, in the future.