Ragazzi fuori (1990, Italy)
A sequel to Mery per sempre, showing the Palermo reform school boys; they are now on the outside, mostly. (The title means "The boys [and girls] on the outside," a pun on outside of reform school, or outside of society.) None of them can find work, or any purpose in their lives.
In Mery per sempre, Mery's transexuality was merely one strand in a series of difficult lives in a poor city. This sequel follows the same emphasis, with a great deal of time spent on the difficulty of making a living and of keeping within the law. However at the beginning, there seem to be plenty of transvestite hookers in Palermo ...
A group of youths on scooters come round to taunt and hassle the girls, and our old friend Mery from the previous film shouts at them to go away. Mery is played by Alessandra di Sanzo.
The scene moves on to what everyone is doing with their lives nowadays, and things seem pretty bleak. Mery is sharing a flat with another transsexual called Veronica (played, I think, by a transwoman whose stage name is Veronica).
Veronica seems not to have shaved yet, today. From the dialogue Veronica seems content to remain biologically male, but we know that Mery considers herself a woman, even though (as she dresses) we see that she is non-operated.
One day a social worker calls; Mery is still a minor and she wants to know whether officialdom needs to intervene. Mery gives her the brush-off as fast as she can. But a few days later, Mery's Mother is in the local street-market, even though she lives in another part of town, obviously looking for Mery.
Mery sees her, and asks her up to her flat. Unfortunately Veronica is there, half-naked. Mamma obviously wants some kind of reconciliation, and hasn't told her hostile husband where she is. Mery makes a bumbling effort to be hospitable, but Mamma clearly doesn't feel comfortable or welcome. At this session, Mery is dressed ambiguously, and the flat is dark, and Mamma probably doesn't realise that a transition is on the cards.
We see the other ex-reform-school inmates getting on with their lives, indulging in sexual experimentation (they are meant to be adolescent boys, and this is Sicily) and minor or major law-breaking.
But Mery is visiting her Mother now; there has been an official letter from the Youth Court: Mery has to appear before them on the 20th March.
Mamma is afraid that they will send Mery away, but Mery says, "Be certain, Mother, I am not going back inside."
Mamma's flat is lighter and although Mery is still dressed ambiguously, she has made up and looks very feminine.
Another day, Mery is in a department store, and spots Claudio, one of the inmates from the reform school, with his new wife and baby. Claudio and his wife spot Mery (who is dressed like a flamboyant camp man) and Claudio senses his wife's negative feelings and walks on. But Mery persists, and Claudio seems pleased to see her, but the wife becomes more sullen and resentful.
Mery bends down and makes baby talk to the baby, no doubt in an allegory of the transsexual yearning for child-bearing, and she says "Bello" several times, meaning beautiful. But the wife glares at her and says "Bella", correcting the adjective to the female form (= beautiful girl, not beautiful boy). Mery looks hurt and confused at the rebuke.
But now we are in the youth court, and Mery has turned up looking reasonably conventional. But it doesn't go well; it seems Mery was only out on licence and all the previous crimes are stacked up again. We saw these in where Mery was a hooker; she was being cheated by a client, and grabbed his gold neck chain, and in a scuffle hit him with a lump of wood, knocking him out. This is now represented as attempted murder and aggravated theft. The court sentences her to several years in an adult prison.
The grim message of the film is rammed home by a series of misfortunes and disasters that seem to befall all the other "boys outside". At the end of the film there is a series of stills of the main actors, with a voice over. Mery's says, "My name is Alessandro di Sanzo, and I am 21 years old. After these two films (meaning Mery per sempre and the present film) many things have changed. The main one is that everyone calls me "Mery per sempre".
In later films, Alessandro used the feminine form of the name, Alessandra.
There is no doubt this film is a gritty exposure of the harsh way of life in waht was then a desperately poor part of Italy.
The film has been released under the title of Boys on the Outside.
HF July 2010
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Ragazzi fuori
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