Italy: Last News

Siddhant Adlakha As a documentary about politically incendiary subjects — including medical transition and the discrimination faced by transgender communities — Italian documentary “GEN_” is unconventionally persuasive. Directed by Gianluca Matarrese, the film follows several months in the life of the elderly Dr. Bini, a quirky, fast-talking fertility and hormone specialist in the twilight of his career, whose job comes with navigating both his patient’s personal lives, and the conservative legalese by which they’re bound.

On paper, the movie’s arguments seem quite simple. It aims to create a sense of normalcy around trans bodies, discussions of gender dysphoria and in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and other nontraditional pregnancies. However, its methods are anything but straightforward.

Its oblique introduction begins with Bini foraging for mushrooms on a hillside, presenting him as a man in touch with nature in the abstract, before the movie yanks us into the fold of his profession. This not only paints a wider picture of his life and interests outside his Milan office, but frames his medical specialties as part of this natural world — his focus is the nature of human bodies, desires and impulses — rather than as something aberrant, as in the minds of detractors. Much of the documentary is composed of sit-down consultations across Bini’s desk, revealing his bedside manner as familiar but to-the-point.

These are mostly shot in profile, which might seem counter-intuitive for a film hoping to endear us to its subjects (the movie’s head-on close-ups are rare), but this seemingly clinical, factual approach has a two-part effect. While it creates an academic remove, it also allows Bini to slowly but surely cross that divide through his numerous conversations as he rattles off facts, figures and options to trans- and cisgender patients alike. Some visit him for reasons of gender transition (both surgical and hormonal), while others are trying to get pregnant after various