“First and Last in a Lifetime”··· The reason Director Kim Il-lan invited two transgender women to a ‘women-only bathhouse’ - 경향신문

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Director Kim Il-lan of the film <Eddy Alice: Take> is doing a photo interview at the Kyunghyang Shinmun studio on the 27th. Lee Jun-heon

When does a documentary begin? Director Kim Il-lan, a founding member of the queer-feminist media collective Yeonbunhong Chima, says her first new film in eight years, <Eddy Alice: Take>, began with a “fateful encounter.”

<Eddy Alice: Take>, which opened on the 28th of last month, is a documentary that cross-cuts the lives of two transgender women (MTF), Eddy (Park Seo-yeon) and Alice (Lee Jeong-min). Kim has long known Eddy, who counsels LGBTQ youth at the human rights group ‘Ddingdong.’ The upbeat Eddy, who “knows how to crack the joke you need in hard moments,” also served for over a year as MC of the queer variety show <Queer Service> on the YouTube channel ‘Yeonbunhong TV,’ directed by Kim Il-lan.

Eddy in <Eddy Alice: Take>. Courtesy of Cinemadal

Eddy first proposed the documentary, saying, “I want to document my life.” This was at a time when hateful remarks about transgender people were frequently visible online. Meeting at the Kyunghyang Shinmun in Jung-gu, Seoul, on the 27th of last month, Kim said, “At first, the thought that came to the fore was, ‘Can I really do this?’”

In 2019, she met the other protagonist, Alice, “as if by fate.” It happened after she heard a story that “a transgender female cinematographer had been forcibly dismissed from a TV drama set.” After meeting Alice, the person at the center of that dismissal, and hearing her out, Kim said she sensed she could start the documentary.

Eddy and Alice may seem linked by the identity of being transgender women, but their personalities and their transitions (aligning assigned sex with one's gender identity) differ. Alice underwent gender confirmation surgery but did not have “surgery to make her look more like a woman.” With a deep voice, she says she went through “a somewhat different process” from many other transgender people who “first change the face and body shape and then transition.” In contrast, Eddy, who first changed her outward appearance, decides after long deliberation to have gender confirmation surgery.

Alice in <Eddy Alice: Take>. Courtesy of Cinemadal

Shot from 2021 to 2024, the documentary does not force the two, whose spheres of activity differ, into the same place. Nor does it attempt to create new contexts by intercutting their stories scene by scene. Alice's storyshaking off the wounds from the drama set and starting to learn danceunfolds all at once, followed in one stretch by Eddy's story of undergoing gender confirmation surgery. Kim said, “People assume minorities know each other well within their communities, but jobs, family forms, ages, and transition paths all differ,” adding, “I felt scenes like the two of them sitting together talking about identity were unnecessary.”

Eddy (left) and Alice in <Eddy Alice: Take> sit by the sea. Courtesy of Cinemadal

Eddy and Alice share a space as on-screen participants only twice. The scene where they meet at the beach and exchange well wishes functions like a hinge, moving from Alice's story to Eddy's.

The second is a staged bathhouse scene. Kim had long heard from Eddy and Alice how difficult women's restrooms are for transgender women. “Even though Eddy has completed her external transition, she gets tense every time she goes to a restroom, and Alice also tells me never to speak in a restroom so others won't be startled by her voice.”

If the women's restroom is a space where they “routinely have their legitimacy questioned,” the women-only bathhouse is a place where they “feel excluded from the outset.” <Eddy Alice: Take> features a women-only bathhouse where the two can bathe at ease. Watching the crew prepare the shoot as the tub fills, Alice says, “It will be the first and the last.” Among the extras filling the pool, the two savor their own baths.

The film also captures how both of them respond to the news of the death of the late Staff Sergeant Byeon Hee-soo, the first soldier to undergo gender confirmation surgery. The obituary came not long after filming began. Eddy, who was close to Byeon, expresses grief in words, while Alice silently watches a video news report announcing the death. Kim said she considered this “a social death and a story that had to be in the documentary.”

Alice also served as the film's lighting director. The film presents Alice at work on set as a crew member, and there is a behind-the-scenes pleasure when she is shown setting up lights for Eddy's interview.

Kim has advanced social discourse through documentaries that delve deeply into social issues. <Mamasang> (2005), which centers on a former camptown woman, broadened conversations about sexuality; <3XFTM> (2009), featuring three transgender men, sought to increase visibility for sexual minorities. <Two Doors> (2012) and <The Remnants> (2018), which address the Yongsan tragedy, kept the disaster from being forgotten.

<Eddy Alice: Take> is, among them, the documentary that “feels the most personal.” “As the participants shared intimate stories as queer people, I too found myself emotionally connecting at many moments. On set, I ended up sharing personal experiences with the crew as well.”

Kim said, “At the very least, after <Eddy Alice: Take> opens, I hope it becomes natural to discuss, at a societal level, the discourse surrounding transgender people.” This is also why, instead of the usual audience talk (GV), they prepared special advance screenings in the form of a ‘Lecture Series.’ From the 21st to the 31st of last month, over six sessions, physicians, gender studies scholars, and activists gave short talks and held discussions on topics such as ‘Menstruation of Transgender Women,’ ‘Voice and Transition,’ and ‘Gender Confirmation Surgery and Abortion.’

If the earlier ‘Lecture Series’ aimed to break the limits of constrained representation around transgender people, from the 3rd they will proceed with themes that broaden the field of documentary criticism. Film critics are set to have frank conversations with the director about <Eddy Alice: Take>. Kim said, “Isn't good medicine bitter? I believe that as the territory of criticism expands, I can make better works too.”

Director Kim Il-lan of the film <Eddy Alice: Take> is doing a photo interview at the Kyunghyang Shinmun studio on the 27th of last month. Lee Jun-heon