Making a film this long that manages to be entertaining for the entire gargantuan runtime of four-and-a- half hours is an enormous achievement for which Weard should be heartily congratulated. She describes her creation as a “trans girl exploitation movie full of sex and violence filtered through a DIY underground aesthetic”, and while it is that, Castration Movie is so gripping not because of its sexual content but because of how real it is. The grainy texture and handheld camera add to this effect, but its realism lies in the dialogue, the acting, and the relationships between the character. Michaela and her friends resemble common people. The frankness with which they speak to each other, their sincere but not always successful attempts to support each other, and even the topics of conversation, from the ethics of slurs to the cesspools of social media, are all authentically familiar.
This queer epics is split into two parts: Chapter 1: Incel Superman, charts the relationship troubles of a man named Turner and his eventual descent into inceldom. Chapter 2: Traps Swan Princess, follows Michaela ‘Traps’ Sinclair (played by director Louise Weard) as she navigates sex work, fertility, and relationships.
Castration Movie is also a very convincing character study. The long takes and slow pace allow us to understand Michaela in all her complexity. She cares deeply for her friends; she volunteers to get pissed on to help her friend’s OnlyFans page, and she takes on the role of mentor for her friend Adeleine, who is still early on in her transition. Yet when her attempts at showing love are rejected, she becomes belligerent and even cruel to mask her own vulnerability. By the end, we know Michaela intimately, and our hearts break watching her beg for love from her boyfriend and entertain dreams of having children with a man who is clearly only using her for sex. We understand Turner and empathise with his loneliness, despite his selfish and creepy behaviour. Every character of Castration Movie is a multifaceted, three-dimensional human being.
For a film that looks at such heavy subject matters as survival sex work and the difficulties of transitioning, Castration Movie manages to be remarkably funny too. The comedy is made possible because of that pervading sense of realism. In one hilarious moment, Michaela stops by a friend’s house to pick up her DIY HRT, only to get dragged into a polycule’s argument about Dune and be interrupted by a sudden bout of screaming from the third member of the throuple. It’s a ridiculous situation, but one that’s just relatable enough. In another scene, a character awaiting top surgery gets his breasts out and invites everybody to feel how heavy they are. Elsewhere, Michaela jokingly encourages her cis male friend to start “transmaxxing” (transitioning in order to get more romantic attention because of the false idea that women have it easier). It’s the humour of everyday queer life with all its absurdities.
Castration Movie showed at Scotland’s Weird Weekend.
