***SPOILERS***
Very loosely based on the Greek myth of Tiresias, Tiresia is a non-op transgender woman and prostitute. The plot is really harrowing. Tiresia is forced into prostitution by her own brother, kidnapped by an "admirer" who is apparently a rose-loving priest, tied up, isolated, blinded by her captor having her eyes punctured with a sharp instrument, dumped and left for dead, nursed back to health (albeit permanently blind) by a young woman who eventually turns out to be an opportunist, and finally killed by the apparently-selfsame priest. Through all of this vile treatment, she tries to make the best of things. In return for her inhumane treatment, the gods grant her a gift. I don't feel this movie had much to say. It just seems to be a catalog of atrocities visited on a human being. There are some inaccuracies concerning the transgender experience - or at least she is not typical of transgender women - in that I don't believe even a blinded transgender woman would wish to have her hair cut or wish to discontinue hormones and live as male or even androgyne. It is not clear that transgender Tiresia is in fact transsexual per se, but she is constantly referred to as transsexual. (She is not a transvestite though, since she takes hormones.) The movie is haunting, and it does not demean transgender people and Tiresia will be a sympathetic character to many, if only because she is a victim who, mostly, refuses to let this define her, a person who tries to adapt.
Very loosely based on the Greek myth of Tiresias, Tiresia is a non-op transgender woman and prostitute. The plot is really harrowing. Tiresia is forced into prostitution by her own brother, kidnapped by an "admirer" who is apparently a rose-loving priest, tied up, isolated, blinded by her captor having her eyes punctured with a sharp instrument, dumped and left for dead, nursed back to health (albeit permanently blind) by a young woman who eventually turns out to be an opportunist, and finally killed by the apparently-selfsame priest. Through all of this vile treatment, she tries to make the best of things. In return for her inhumane treatment, the gods grant her a gift. I don't feel this movie had much to say. It just seems to be a catalog of atrocities visited on a human being. There are some inaccuracies concerning the transgender experience - or at least she is not typical of transgender women - in that I don't believe even a blinded transgender woman would wish to have her hair cut or wish to discontinue hormones and live as male or even androgyne. It is not clear that transgender Tiresia is in fact transsexual per se, but she is constantly referred to as transsexual. (She is not a transvestite though, since she takes hormones.) The movie is haunting, and it does not demean transgender people and Tiresia will be a sympathetic character to many, if only because she is a victim who, mostly, refuses to let this define her, a person who tries to adapt.