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Tiresia
2003 Drama
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Credits
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Director: Bertrand Bonello
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Script: Bertrand Bonello, Luca Fazzi
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Photo: Josée Deshaies
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Music: Albin De La Simone, Laurie Markovitch
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Cast: Laurent Lucas (Terranova/Père
François),
Clara Choveaux (Tiresia I),
Thiago Telès (Tiresia II),
Célia Catalifo (Anna),
Lou Castel (Charles),
Alex Descas (Marignac),
Fred Ulysse (Roberto),
Stella (Kim),
Marcelo Novais Teles (Eduardo),
Olivier Torres (Mathieu),
Isabelle Ungaro (Louise),
Abel Nataf (Le fils d'Anna)
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Country: France
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Language: French
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Runtime: 116 min
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Summary
One evening, Terranova, a solitary young man, drives to the Bois de Boulogne, where he
selects the most attractive prostitute he can find, a young Brazilian called Tiresia.
He takes her back to his dingy apartment where he announces that he intends to keep her
forever, as an object to be gazed upon in admiration. To Terranova’s surprise, over
the next few days Tiresia’s voice deepens and she starts to acquire facial hair.
She tells her captor that she is a transsexual and is on a course of hormone treatment
before her final operation. Terranova’s reaction is to stab his prisoner in the
eyes and dump her unconscious body in a forest on the outskirts of a remote village.
The next day, a dumb teenage girl, Anna, discovers the body and has Tiresia taken back
to her home, where she lives alone with her father. Unable to go to the police because
he is an illegal immigrant, Tiresia accepts Anna’s kindnesses and stays as a welcome guest
in her home. Blinded and robbed of his feminine beauty, Tiresia accepts his lot
and acquires a reputation as a soothsayer amongst the local community. This troubles
the local priest, Father François, who sees in Tiresia a threat to his authority.
Review
This third film from controversial art-house director Bertrand Bonello is as intriguing
and artistically rich as it is frustrating and impenetrable. With a pacing that
would be tediously slow moving in a conventional film, Tiresia succeeds in holding our
attention and drawing us into the dark inner world of its protagonists, largely on the
strength of Josée Deshaies’ poetically sombre (almost Bresson-like) camera work
and the tortured performances from its three lead actors. Unusually, the lead character
is played by two actors, one female (Clara Choveaux), the other male (Thiago Telès).
Perhaps more bewilderingly, Laurent Lucas plays the part of two different characters (Terranova
and Père François), inviting the spectator to draw some improbable conclusions
about what this unfathomable morality tale actually means.
The film, which is based on a Greek myth, tackles themes of a spiritual, sexual and
religious nature with an almost surreal profundity and originality, although much of this
is marred by Bonello’s awkward style, which all too often comes across as slightly pretentious
and self-consciously arty (the bombastic opening sequence being a case in point).
The shocking brutality of the scenes in which Tiresia is mutilated and dumped is calculated
to arouse controversy and will doubtless put off many spectators, but others are more
like to be alienated by the film’s grim asceticism and its baffling ambiguity.
© James Travers 2006
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