Wild Side Sexuality and Love

Sebastien Lifshit'z film Wild Side (2004) discusses concepts of different genders, sexuality, and racialized labor. He presents the boundaries of these topics and the organic nature of them as well through the main characters relationships with family, sexual partners, and relationships. The main character, Stephanie as an adult, and Pierre as a child, deals with validation and invalidation in terms of the relationship between sex and love. Stephanie deals with the loss of her entire family as her Father and sister abandon her and her mother as a child, and the illness and death of her mother. Stephanie's intimate family becomes that of her lovers, Djhamel and Mikhail. Validation is important to Stephanie while she is still very strong and true to her identity. Stephanie's mother tells her to thank god her father is no longer alive to see who Stephanie is now and Stephanie replies saying maybe he would want me to be happy, her mother then rel pies men are different. This is an interesting moment in terms of gender, family, and validation. Stephanie becomes isolated and because death is around her, it seems as though she is isolated in finding and enjoying her own happiness. At another point later in the film, Stephanie asks Mikhail if he loves her aside from her body and he replies yes, she then replies asking why Mikhail doesn't ask her to stop prostituting. Emotional validation and longing for intimacy is seen again here. Stephanie's relationship with Mikhail and Djhamel is very tender and intimate at times and they all share a love for one another. The scene in which Stephanie and Djhamel meet is very interesting and changed my perspective on the relationship. They met in an encounter were they were both feeling vulnerable and some one else was dominating the sexual act, the notion of vulnerability is shared then with all three characters and their bond with one another. Validation in terms of gender is seen among Stephanie's relationship with Djhamel and Mikhail. As I stated earlier, Mikhail seems to have a fixation on the perfection of Stephanie while Djhamel is caught in scenes gazing at Mikhail and his masculinity. In one scene Djhamel wants to see Stephanie as a man, as Pierre, and he dresses her in butch clothing and asks her to speak with a masculine voice. Satisfaction and validation within the relationship is seen on different levels in terms of jealousy and attraction among the three characters. Gender is an important part of the relationship Stephanie shares with her mother, her mother is uncomfortable seeing Stephanie as a female and voices is to her while Stephanie is not afraid to show who she is. In one scene Stephanie's mother asks her to look at her and Stephanie embraces her and her mother rejoices saying oh my boy. The name, Pierre, is of extreme importance throughout the film as it displays different time periods of Stephanie's life. Mobilities in terms of immigration and and language and location change the realm of understanding and connectedness during the film. Language and culture play a role in terms of this as well as class and job title. The role of space in the film is very contrastive between wide open spaces and tight filled shots. Stephanie has her life as a child as Pierre on a farm in wide open organic spaces contrastive with Stephanie's life as an adult in synthetic environments and crammed spaces such as the one in the picture provided. Almost all of the sexual scenes are very up close and almost hard to make out.