A Change of Sex will be available on BBC iPlayer from 3Â June.
Among the many storylines that intersect in Adam Curtisâs recent epic documentary series Canât Get You out of My Head, one in particular may have caught your attention.
In the fourth chapter, But What If the People Are Stupid?, we are introduced to Julia Grant, a trans woman navigating the medical and bureaucratic hurdles of 1980s Britain. Curtis introduces Grant as a symbol of the rise of individualism, an argument he illustrates through scenes depicting Grant sitting opposite her psychiatrist, an unseen paternalistic force.
âMaybe you identify with certain stereotypes⦠but that doesnât make you a woman,â the doctor insists, withholding the surgery that Grant desperately wants. âItâs a medical matter, it isnât a personal choice.â
Sight & Sound: the June 2021 issue
Mark Kermode and Prano BaileyâBond talk Censor and the 80s British censorship massacre. Read if you dare!
Plus the history of âvideo nastiesâ, Kelly Reichardt on First Cow, Suzanne Lindonâs Spring Blossom, the sprawling brilliance of Robert Altmanâs Nashville, and vintage Jack Nicholson.
10 May 2021
Sight & Sound June 2021 issue
Itâs the issue they didnât want you to read! Sight & Sound avoids the censorâs scissors, but canât resist the sinster draw of Prano BaileyâBondâs wicked yet darkly beautiful Censor.
Mark Kermode joins BaileyâBond in discussing the 1980s tabloid frenzy surrounding so-called âvideo nastiesâ â unrated VHS horror releases that snuck past the beady-eyed BBFC â and her debut feature
It is an enduring dilemma in art: the question of whether the real world, in all its complexity, is better understood through reportage or fiction, or through hybrids of the two. The question particularly exercises documentarists now, when the political reality of the globalised world is increasingly complex and elusive, not least due to the relentless online traffic of truths, lies and indeterminacies.
Perhaps for those very reasons, we increasingly demand some leavening element of entertainment to help smooth our path toward understanding. As ‘true crime’ series flourish on Netflix and elsewhere, even the most rigorous documentarists must ask themselves whether they should aspire to presenting truth in unembellished form, or whether it needs to be presented accessibly as something closer to ‘reality’ – using that word in the ‘reality show’ sense, in which actuality always comes to some degree fictionalised.