For a terse, inadequate, understated, rushed synopsis of Foucault's Madness & Civilization, one might write that qualitative evaluations, at any given moment, have specific psychological preferences, stereotypically spiritualized in what they consider to be rational, enticing, praiseworthy, while alternative dispositions which don't snuggly fit the definitions must still attempt to forthrightly applaud them, or fall prey to a legion of mental health authorities who make a living cultivating them, using various methods to diagnose and cure the afflicted who can't help but stand out in sharp contrast.
These definitions change, In Search of Lost Time's examination of the Dreyfus Affair highlighting malleable pretensions to culture, the Affair not relating to definitive mindsets particularly, but Proust's compellingly interminable investigation of its protagonists and arch-villains, themselves changing their positions depending on their analysis of the popular, thereby behaving politically, to parlour, antiquate, and esteem, demonstrates how madness and civilization dialectically contend, embrace, synthesize, in rhetorical applications of epistemological virtue.
There are people who seem to be lacking in reason, people who adamantly believe their pet guinea pigs are reincarnated Julio-Claudians for example, but The Danish Girl's Einar Wegener/Lili Elbe (Eddie Redmayne) is clearly sane, kind, gentle, yet has no means through which to access inadmissible components of his personality, and is therefore labelled undesirable.
He escapes curative clutches however, enduring minor experimental encumbrances but still maintaining his freedom, and, with the aid of his idyllic wife Gerda (Alicia Vikander), eventually finds a doctor who recognizes his sanity and wholeheartedly assists.
Before discovering this doctor you seem him struggling to animate, as he seeks out the compassion of the civil who misguidedly think him mad.
The film is a quiet timid exploratory illustration of gender identification which focuses more on Lili/Einar and Gerda's brilliant relationship, effervescently brought to life by Redmayne and Vikander, true compassion and understanding, than the horrors Einar/Lili faces as he transforms.
Illumination.
Trying to find markets for art complements Lili/Einar's discoveries, selling paintings like trying to invigorate public opinion, open up new worlds, and encourage sociocultural inclusivity.
Gerda's paintings are quite beautiful.
As is a world where difference is an integral strength.
Intimately unrecognized.
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