Beautiful, but disappointing.

Rating: 5/10 (28 December 2019)

I was really looking forward to this film--and in the end, I can say that I'm glad I saw it. The music and cinematography are beautiful, truly artful. The actors of Lili and Gerda really drew me in. The whole film packs an emotional punch.
But after the credits rolled, my lingering feeling was a sense of how tragically misguided Lili's character is, and how Gerda suffers for it. I'm not sure how closely the events mirror history, and I'll touch on spoilers here, so you're aware.
As soon as Einar embraces Lili, Einar becomes "dead" to her. She can't even speak from her prior (male) perspective, because she has fully constructed (realized?) an alternate self with completely new wants, needs, goals, thoughts, habits, etc., leaving her previous self behind. There's a point at which a doctor diagnoses Lili with schizophrenia, and honestly, her transformation feels a lot like that sometimes.
Reality check: There is no "Einar" and "Lili." There is one person, with one soul, and one mind, one set of behaviors and feelings, that is always evolving, but IS and ALWAYS HAS BEEN an uncomplicated state of "self." Whether your body matches. If you consider your soul to be feminine or masculine, it simply IS. You don't need to reject your partner of 10 years, and forget how and why you ever could have loved them, just because it doesn't "fit your image" anymore. You don't need to forget why you ever loved your lifelong passion, and only become interested in getting married to a man and bearing a child, in order to be a woman.
And I looked it up: Gerda, in real life, adjusted her thoughts and feelings, to the point where she was painting lesbian erotica and portraits of Lili for the rest of her days. Probably because she had fallen in love with the spirit of a person. Whereas Lili seems to have become obsessed with having the appearance of something.
And it's totally fine for your sexuality or gender identity to change later in life, but to say that you "don't have feelings for your wife anymore simply because you've become a woman, and you're not a homosexual woman." Well--Reality check again--You said it yourself, Lili, you were always a woman, so you must have had some bisexual feelings once upon a time, when you happily got married, and had regular sex with this person, for 10 years. It would have been way more honest for Lili to say, "I've done some soul searching, and I'm realizing that I'm not attracted to you anymore, as a matter of fact I'd like to pursue a relationship with a man." But instead she kept Gerda around for years and years, refusing to communicate with her, on account of "not being able to tap into Einar's voice anymore," allowing Gerda to struggle and make blind decisions and try her damndest to support this ultimately selfish person.
I was left with these maddening, saddened feelings after the film. The story can still be appreciated, and being pro-LGBT*, we can be glad of the progress made, but in more ways than one, there was a LOT of tragic ignorance showcased in this film.