When the son wears girls clothes

It all started with a sexist comment by Alice Schwarzer. She was surprised on a talk show that such a "beautiful young man" as actor Florian David Fitz could also write screenplays. The two got into a conversation, at the end of which Schwarzer gave Fitz her autobiography and a copy of Emma. In it, the actor spotted the image of a father and his son, both wearing dresses. The idea for "Oskar's Dress" was there, the new drama comedy by Florian David Fitz and director Hüseyin Tabak ("Gipsy Queen"). That was in 2012. Long before the gender debate and the trans controversy led by Alice Schwarzer was so vehement.

However, the film is coming to theaters at a time when gender identity is being debated more than ever before. At first glance, that doesn't sound like a lot of family fun at Christmas, but rather like the German gender debate becoming a film. But is that true?

Florian David Fitz ("Doctor's Diary" and "Vincent will Meer") plays Ben, Oskar's father himself. A policeman who lives apart from his wife (Marie Burchardt) and only sees his two children every few weekends. So the ex-wife kept "the thing" a secret from him: Ben's nine-year-old son Oskar has been wearing a dress for months and calls himself Lili. When Ben finds out about this, the drama begins. But it is not that of the child who struggles with himself. Oskar is self-confident and clear about what and who he is: Lili, a girl wearing a dress. A yellow one with flowers and ruffled sleeves. Puberty is still far away, the decision is still easy. The fact that this will not always be the case is underlined in the film like a threat. In one scene, Lili takes all the children's pictures of herself from the wall: "They were wrong". It's the father who has the problem.

Around this so clearly formulated fact the storm breaks out. Overwhelmed, Ben questions what he previously thought was safe: I know my child. The core theme of "Oskars Kleid" is therefore not gender identity, but family: what we think we know about them and how we define ourselves through them. Finally, we tell our own story through the relationships that have most influenced it.

Ben also has a complicated relationship with his parents, who think they know him very well. A quirky couple, wonderfully played by Senta Berger and Burghart Klaußner. Here, too, the family members' self-perception and that of others drift so apart that they end in accusations and finally silence. It's about trauma that everyone carries and the collateral damage that it brings - in the cycle of being hurt and hurting. Because Ben not only wants to straighten out his son, but his entire family: no longer be an alcoholic and his wife back.

What sounds like heavy fare is a humorous look at human weaknesses and their struggle against their own ideas. And that's largely due to the good comedic timing of Berger, Fitz and Kida Khodr Ramadan ("4Blocks"), who plays Ben's colleague. Only now and then does the film give in to the horror of the terraced house Tupperware idyll that one has to fear so much in German comedies. For example, when Ben builds a terribly perfect tree house in the garden with his children, from which they can later look at the starry sky.

Although the film itself does not intend to be identity-political, you can already see the identity-political flames blazing. About the purity of experience of the makers and actors. The accusations are always the same: Trans roles should only be played by trans people! According to the credits, Lili was played anonymously by Lauri. Or: does Fitz, whose personal life is only known to be that he has twins, have enough of his own experiences to tell the story authentically? However, the usual accusation that being trans is only ever presented as a “problem” can be faced with equanimity. Florian David Fitz says he likes to make films about "outsiders". But Lili is not an outsider. She is right in the middle, is lovingly cared for by everyone. Even the new school is doing well at first. Her theme is "being different" and a nice sentence in the film is: "Nobody is like everyone".

"Oskar's Dress" asks precise, important questions - and cautiously provides possible answers. Who do you tell what, when and how much? How sure can a child be that they are not following a trend? How do I know if the decision is final?

The power of the film is that you live through the father's process, feel his doubts, his distrust and trust in his child. And so in the end only one realization remains: You are only afraid of things that are foreign to you. With that in mind, one would be very interested to know if Alice Schwarzer liked the film as well.