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Let Me Die A Woman
[Synapse]
1978; color
Directed by Doris Wishman
Starring: Dr. Leo Wollman & Leslie
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Whoa. Never before has the phrase "my eyes have been soiled" been more apt! Doris Wishman's mind-blowing gender-bender Let Me Die A Woman is one of the most twisted tales she ever brought to the screen. And, taking some of her other work into consideration, that is saying something. Ostensibly a documentary featuring "real people," not actors (even though I know I've seen one or two of the transvestites in the group counseling scenes in other exploitation films where they also appear in drag), LMDAW is about as disturbingly exploitative as a film can get. I've seen all sorts of stomach churning scenes in mondo style movies and cannibal films but nothing—and I truly mean NOTHING—has ever made me squirm and groan like the medical footage Wishman got her hands on for this one. That's right, LMDAW has actual sex change operation footage. Which I thought was the most disgusting thing I'd ever seen… until they show the post-op follow-up exam. Even the most rigidly sober in the BMB audience might need a drink after that part. Assuming you can make it through without covering your eyes for at least a portion of it. (I know I had to; Bunny opted to put the bag she was crocheting over her head during much of this film.) The bulk of it was shot in 1976 or '77, and released in 1978, but there's also a couple seemingly out of place scenes that look as if they were shot years before everything else. On the bonus audio commentary track Whishman archivist / documentarian Michael Bowen says she may have completed an earlier version of the film with the title "Adam Or Eve;" this is backed up by the bonus alternate opening credits scene bearing that title and a 1971 copyright and featuring an uncredited, very young looking, Harry Reems. (Who also appears in one of the scenes that looks chronologically wrong.) Throughout the movie we get interview segments with a transgendered person named Leslie who, aside from the actual medical doctor from Long Island who serves as on-screen narrator, is the film's sole "star." Her story of being a straight woman growing up with boobs and a penis underscores something Wishman seemed to want to make very clear - that most of these people profiled were simply born with the wrong equipment and looking for a way to achieve some sort of inner peace and happiness. I'm not sure if I can recommend this film to anyone other than Wishman completists, and maybe fans of the surgery channel, and still keep my conscience clean. Let's leave it at that.
—the Kommandant
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