‘GEN_’ Review: A Zany Italian Doc on Transgender Healthcare
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.
