MovieChat Forums > 8 femmes (2002) Discussion > Is Pierrette a [SPOILERS]?

Is Pierrette a [SPOILERS]?


Maybe it's just me, but i have always thought that in this film, there are not 8 women, but 7...

Although the actress Fanny Ardant is a very beautiful woman, i get the feeling she is meant to be a transvestite. Here are my arguments:

1) When Gaby is telling her daughter about her absent father, we hear she has his eyes (brown, like Pierrette's) and his cheekbones (prominent, like Pierrette's). We also hear that Gaby thinks he died - or did he fake his own death to reinvent himself as a woman?

2) After this revelation, we see Pierrette secretly listening to this conversation behind a curtain, with a tear in her eye. Is that a shadow around her chin, or a slight beard?

3) Marcel married Gaby even though she was pregnant with someone else's brother. Did he feel an obligation, as it was his brother's? No doubt Marcel is Pierrette's brother, but is she his "sister"?

4) Gaby falls in love with Pierrette almost from the moment she appears. Had they already fallen in love? Fair enough, she wouldn't be the only lesbian in this film, but with Marcel's male lover as her lover, Gaby can be seen as pretty straight.

5) The colours they wear. Gaby wears green, Pierrette red, a clash of colours. Does this mean perhaps that they would never have worked out? Suzon, Gaby's daughter, wears pink, a diluted shade of red. Is she 50% Pierrete's?

6) At the end of Mamy's number, when all the women are lined up together, Pierrette is significantly taller and broader shouldered than the rest.

I know that there are a lot of maybes in my theory, but it all adds up. What do we think?

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Do you mean a transgender, or a transvestite (one who cross-dresses) There are definitely signs that Ozon intended this, so this is more than just a theory.

In the scene where Gaby and Pierrette confess, Pierrette touches Gaby in a way transgenders do.

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Ozon's first idea was to have all the female parts played by famous actors in drag, but he thought it would have been way too camp and difficult to keep the drama serious.
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