Psy of Chile

Although we tend to mythologize childhood as a carefree kingdom, a playland of imagination and innocence, the real nature of our formative years will occasionally come into focus as a hairy old memory or as the content of a troubling work of art, in this case the brilliant first feature of Belgian director Alain Berliner, Ma Vie en Rose (My Life in Pink).

Berliner sees the supposedly benign aspects of childhood as two-sided coins: Games of competition become excuses for domination; toys are training gear for the future. And the indoctrination of children into allotted gender roles is serious business &emdash; as Ma Vie 's main character, Ludovic, learns all too painfully.

Ludovic is a sweet, graceful boy with an angelic face, whose family and neighbors are horrified at his most heartfelt wish: to correct the "mistake" of his biology and recover his real identity as a girl. At first the film, its characters and audience all laugh patronizingly at this discomforting little "joke." After all, Ludovic is cute, tender and innocent. But things soon turn ugly, and as the boy persists in his feminine identification, even his closest family, mom and dad in particular, are venting their frustrations upon this little Й (you know the routine).

The story, set in a creepily familiar French version of an American suburb,