When you look at a Gerda Wegener painting you sometimes notice a redheaded girl that comes up in multiple works of art. What If I told you that that woman was actually a man. This movie tells the dramatic life story of a man who was brave enough to come out as a transgender woman in a world where that didn’t exist. It was socially and mentally impossible in that day in time to think of a man wanting to dress and act like a woman.

Einar Wegener was a Danish painter along with his wife. They both had very different styles of painting. Einar was more restricted, like he was hiding something and Gerda was more free and unashamed. The moment Einar realized that he was different was when he was helping his wife finish a painting for one of their clients who was a famous ballerina at the time. Gerda had asked Einar to put on women’s stockings and shoes, while laying a dress over him to get the illusion of women sitting the same way as the model. In that moment something had changed. He was caught by the client wearing the stockings and shoes and as a joke they called him Lili.

From there on, as a joke, Einar dressed as his alter female ego “Lili” accompanying his wife to events saying that he was the cousin of Einar Wegener. After a while the joke got old, but Einar kept wearing women’s clothes, makeup and a short red wig. Gerda didn’t know why this was happening to her husband. She would later understand why her husband felt that way.

This movie had amazing cinematography. The exposure of light, color and angles of the movie were perfect. It definitely felt like an artist making a memoire. At some parts it felt like a foreign film because of its long scenes where there were no dialogue, only “pauses in time” where the watcher can ponder on what was happening. It’s a movie about finding your deep inner self. If you are interested in seeing a dramatic movie with an artistic twist then this is the movie for you. Be sure to bring your tissues because it’s a tearjerker.