Space and Mobility in Wild Side

Heteronormativity plays an important role in the construction of bodies that undergo asylum or migration in modern societies. For Luibhéid, “Most scholarship, policymaking, service provision, activism, and cultural work organized around the premise that migrants are heterosexual (or on their way of becoming so) and queers are citizens (even though second-class ones)”. (131) But what are the consequences when heteronormativity is not the reality behind a particular migrant body? Migration can be a personal decision influence only by one's desires, but when migration is a result of political, social, economic or personal conflicts in one's nation, the reason behind migrating bodies is one of marginality. An after leaving a particular and supposedly familiar space that does not embrace a particular identity (because of capital, gender, labor, etc) , bodies are constrained. Neoliberalism, international competence and trade in larger scales have left many citizens in extremely precarious forms of living. Migration becomes a construct in which narratives create specific characterizations and expectations. Any type of body that does not fit in the normative narrative regarding migration is subject to invalidation. This invalidation of bodies ask for subjects to justify themselves, to explain their personal reasons and to state themselves within the binary construction of inside/ outside of the hegemonic discourse. Space mobility, then, turns into immobility because when adopting a new space, the reconfiguration of identity needs to participate in a new discursive construction.
Space constitutes a symbolic element in Wilde Side. The characterization of the duality between the rural and the urban spheres is reinforced by the mise-en scène. Lighting is significant in both spaces. Saturation, darkness and prominent shadows are represented in the urban spaces. Sexuality and prostitution is displaced into the periphery of the urban society. The underground bathroom where Djamel prostitute, or the saturated scenes of Stephanie prostituting in a car are in contrast with the mostly openness of the shots that recalls her identity as Pierre. In the idealized pastoral construction, Pierre runs in an open and lighted green field. Is not that the movie tries to create an opposition or a value judgment in favor or against those spaces, it just presents the different narratives and bodies that each space produces. Time also shapes spaces. The rural space presented during the character's childhood is not deployed the same way when she is an adult. The green fields have long gone, and even trees do not have the greenish aspects presented in the past.
Migration result in a displacement of bodies. Marginalization is a result of not fitting in the hegemonic discourse. If a body does not represent the hegemonic ideology, then the body is displace to the space where the hegemonic discourse pretends to collocate them. For instance, Mikhail is displace to the kitchen, a space where migration blends in with the narrative constructed around migration and labor. What happens when the citizen (in the case of Stephanie) is considered a peripheral character not because of nationalism, but because of gender? She is also displaced, her body is marginalized to the streets. She is judged by a society that does even pretend to understand her, is used as an object of pleasure and voyeur, and has to defend her identity even with her mother. An regardless of her conflict with the past when coming back home, the director is not trying to justify her body by presenting the spectator a compelling story about her past. The scene where she can not face her mother shows vulnerability of the character, not of the film. The filmmaker does not have to explain to curious audience why Stephany is who she is by recurring to a linear, compelling narrative about her past. Stephany just is who she is, no need for the director to justify and ask the audience to understand. What the director ask for is an open participation in linking the meaning of the seemly discontinuous images in a more complex structure.
An interesting relationship can be made between the resistance and the marginalization of transsexualism. The following link would address to Camp Trans, the alternative space for transexuals that want to enjoy Women's Music Festivals but cannot enter because of the “womyn-born-womyn” only policy:
CampTrans2010
http://www.camp-trans.org/pages/whatwedo.html