Friday, June 15, 2007

Alexis Arquette: She's My Brother

Rosanna Arquette, Patricia Arquette, David Arquette, and Richmond Arquette have a fifth sibling. Alexis has had mostly small roles in quite a few films, appearing first as an effeminate boy and later as a full-on drag queen. However, in real life, she's a male-to-female transsexual. She decided to make a documentary of her "last year living as a man." We follow her to the offices of doctors and therapists as she jumps through the hoops necessary to have sex reassignment surgery, consults a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon about feminizing her facial features, and weighs the pros and cons of hormone therapy. Along the way, she encounters a surprising number of people who don't take her transgender identity seriously, apparently believing that she wants to "chop off her dick" as a prank. We also get to see photos and home movies of Alexis as a teenager, already displaying a pronounced femininity, albeit couched in the fashions of the New Wave era. She was a beautiful boy who grew into a beautiful young man, but she's finally following her true path. Strongly recommended.

Alexis Arquette: She's My Brother, dirs. Matthew Barbato & Nikki Parrott, 2007 UK, 70 min.

Technorati tags: Alexis Arquette, Transgender, Transsexual, Documentary, Frameline, Frameline31, LGBT Film

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