Laerte-se

Laerte-se
Promotional poster
Directed by	Lygia Barbosa da Silva Eliane Brum
Written by	Lygia Barbosa da Silva Eliane Brum Raphael Scire
Starring	Laerte Coutinho Eliane Brum Rita Lee
Production company	True Lab
Distributed by	Netflix
Release date	1 May 2017 (2017-05-01) (Brazil)
Running time	100 minutes
Country	Brazil
Language	Portuguese

Laerte-se is a 2017 Brazilian documentary film directed by Lygia Barbosa da Silva and Eliane Brum about Brazilian cartoonist Laerte Coutinho and her experience of gender identity, transition and self-expression. The film follows Laerte's reflections on her life, body, relationships, family and artistic work after she began publicly presenting herself as a woman.

The film was released by Netflix in 2017 and was described by contemporary Brazilian coverage as the streaming company's first original documentary produced in Brazil.

Premise

The documentary follows Laerte through conversations with Brum and through scenes from her everyday life. Rather than presenting a conventional biographical account, the film focuses on Laerte's thoughts about gender, identity and the process of living publicly as a woman.

The documentary also examines the relationship between Laerte's identity and her work as a cartoonist. Her drawings and comic-strip characters are incorporated into the film as a visual device through which her thoughts and memories are explored.

Production

Laerte-se was directed by Lygia Barbosa da Silva and Eliane Brum. Contemporary reports described the project as the result of approximately three years of filming and characterized Brum's interviews with Laerte as central to the documentary's structure.

The film's approach is deliberately intimate. Brum's conversations with Laerte examine subjects including gender identity, relationships, family life and questions surrounding transition, while the documentary intercuts these conversations with scenes from Laerte's daily life and artistic practice.

The documentary was produced by True Lab and distributed internationally through Netflix.

Themes

The film centers on questions of gender identity, femininity and masculinity. Laerte discusses the gradual process through which she came to present herself as a woman and the ways in which this changed her relationship with her body and with other people.

The documentary also addresses the practical dimensions of transition and self-presentation, including clothing, appearance and reactions from family members. Rather than framing transition as a completed process, the film presents it as ongoing and sometimes unresolved.

A recurring theme is the connection between Laerte's personal identity and her artistic production. Her drawings function in the documentary both as illustrations and as a way of representing thoughts and experiences that are difficult to express directly through interviews.

The film additionally explores the relationship between public identity and private life. Because Laerte was already a well-known public figure, her transition had received considerable attention in the Brazilian media, making the documentary partly an examination of the difference between public representations of her and her own understanding of herself.

Reception

Contemporary reviews generally praised the film's intimate approach and its refusal to present Laerte's experience as a simple or fully resolved narrative.

The Daily Dot praised the way the documentary uses Laerte's cartoons to reveal her thoughts and described its treatment of her transition as unusually intimate, including its examination of her relationship with family, her body and public identity.

Brazilian criticism similarly highlighted the film's restraint. A review in Cinemação argued that the documentary's strength lay in allowing Laerte to expose contradictions and uncertainties without attempting to provide a definitive interpretation of her identity.

Other Brazilian commentary emphasized the film's visual and ethical approach. A review published by Revista Cult described the documentary as combining Laerte's artistic work with reflections on her life and gender identity and praised the filmmakers' treatment of the subject.

Release

The film is listed by IMDb as having been released in Brazil on May 1, 2017.

Contemporary reporting and streaming databases also identify May 19, 2017, as the film's worldwide Netflix streaming release. Rotten Tomatoes lists May 19 as the streaming release date, while contemporary press coverage described the film as available on Netflix in May 2017.

The film was made available through Netflix in numerous countries and was described in Brazilian press as the first Brazilian documentary produced as a Netflix Original.

Cast

• Laerte Coutinho as herself
• Eliane Brum as herself
• Rita Lee as herself

Critical discussion and cultural context

Laerte-se appeared at a time when Laerte Coutinho's public transition had already generated substantial discussion in Brazil. The documentary therefore focuses less on introducing her to audiences and more on examining the personal and artistic implications of an identity that had already become part of public discourse.

The film's emphasis on uncertainty and self-questioning distinguishes it from a conventional biographical documentary. Its central narrative is not simply the chronology of Laerte's transition but her continuing reflection on what gender, femininity and identity mean to her.

The documentary also attracted attention to questions surrounding language and representation. In May 2017, Brazilian media reported that Netflix's audio-description track initially referred to Laerte using masculine grammatical forms; Netflix subsequently requested a revision. The incident generated discussion about gendered language and representation in audiovisual media.

External links

• Laerte-se on Netflix
• Laerte-se at IMDb
• Laerte-se at Rotten Tomatoes