Now this was something I watched with such a pleasure that I might even re-watch it again.
It is a story about two very famous transgender people who might have started together but drifted apart later in life, living completely different lives and following their own paths. It was directed by Zackary Drucker who is transgender herself and can be seen in the movie.
The documentary contrasts lives of April Ashley and Amanda Lear and mainly uses archival interviews and excerpts from Ashley's own memoirs as a testament of how the life back in the 1950s and 1960s was: we are talking about the times when crossdressing was punished by law (but strangely enough, allowed as a part of the stage act) so small wonder many crossdressers gravitated towards famous and notorious Paris nightclub "Le Carrousel de Paris" where many of them found employment as a glamorous performers. The part of documentary that deals with "Le Carrousel" is genuinely the highlight of the movie and I would not be surprised if the club eventually get its own documentary because its really astonishing that in conservative post-WW2 Europe such a place existed, even if French love to think of themselves as free-spirited, but according to surviving performers, it was also a very, very buttoned-up place. Jet set would arrive to be entertained by sensationally attractive boys who posed as Hollywood glamour beauties: the illusion was cemented by actual surgeries some of them got in Morocco.
April Ashley died in 2021 so the movie uses her old interviews to confirm her perspective: he was a beautiful boy who did not fit in his Liverpool surroundings and was in fact, often beaten, harassed and bullied there. No wonder he fitted perfectly in "Le Carrousel" where everybody enjoyed the camaraderie, even though there was obvious competition and jealousy - they all shared backstage life and supported each other against the prejudicial outside world. Ashley was actually fairly successful until sex operation, when she decided to start a completely new life in UK as a photo model - quickly outed by salacious tabloids and destroyed in a court after a highly publicised divorce from a Baron Corbett (who claimed he was deliberately deceived). The scandal destroyed Ashley's professional and personal life and she had never recovered from it, though much later in life when social atmosphere changed, she eventually got some moral satisfaction from being recognised as transgender equality - but this was after decades of criticism and media assaults.
While Ashley and her contemporaries from "Le Carrousel" all claim that there was a young pretty boy (who also painted) working with them and who eventually also did sex operation - consequently starting a new life and rejecting old contacts - Amanda Lear absolutely refuses to admit anything about it and claims her own story. Now in her eighties, Lear is a true diva, living grand life and comes across as confident, entertaining, witty and totally in control of her life. Director Zackary Drucker tries all the tricks to corral her into admitting trans past but Lear is too clever to get caught - even when pictures of "Le Carrousel" are pushed in her face, Lear won't budge and to be honest, Drucker comes across as nuisance - simultaneously flattering Lear and claiming she was the biggest trans celebrity ever, the northern light, etc but watching like a hawk for any sign of capitulation. There is a fleeting moment when we see something going on inside Lear's mind - but more I think about it, more I am prone to understand it was probably sad realisation that after a lifetime of fencing off questions about her gender, she was fooled into expecting genuinely respectful interview which turned into just another same old scandal digging expose.
At the end, it is a curious look at two lives that had completely different path. For all her late-life awards, Ashley is a tragic life because she was constantly haunted by tabloids. Lear used her notoriety to create intriguing stage image and became successful disco star with cult following across the world - journalists might have been annoying and repetitive but she knew how to deal with them. Director Zackary Drucker might say whatever she wants ("oh, I love Lear, she was always my idol") but the movie focuses heavily on unmasking Lear and eventually it became really distasteful - at this point, Lear is retired eighty year old who deserves to live her life as she pleases, there is absolutely no need to dig & unearth anything if she is happy to live whatever life she created for herself. She does not need to apologise or explain herself to anybody.
