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The first time I saw *Bound* (1996) was with my “gold star” lesbian girlfriend Kaye. She had never even kissed a boy before she met me—and as it would turn out, I wasn’t a boy anyway. It was the 1990s. I wasn’t out as transgender. As much as I was aware of who or what I was, Kaye was in on the secret. I wasn’t what I appeared. Neither were the Wachowskis. All we knew at the time was that they were former building contractors and that this was their directorial debut. They were not yet the world-famous creators of the *Matrix* films. Nor were they out as transgender. Now that they are out, and I am, too, both *Bound* and my first impressions of it appear in a different light.The existence of such a cinema is something of a miracle, particularly in the post-9/11 world, with its renewed pressure to align ourselves with a global order of patriotism, masculinity, whiteness. With its insidious insistence that we trust order and not each other. At the end of *Bound, *Corky asks Violet: “Do you know what the difference is between you and me?” Trick question! Violet avers. “Me neither,” says Corky. Not that there’s no difference, but that the difference need not be pinned down in language, need not be worn like a badge. You can believe what you feel.### More: [Essays](< https://www.criterion.com/current/category/2-essays >)##### The Films of Mike Mills: A Human SpaceIn his fiction features *Beginners, 20th Century Women*, and *C’mon C’mon, *the acclaimed director casts a sensitive gaze on the rich psychodynamics of human relationships and the hidden interconnections of our unconscious motivations.##### *Cruel Story of Youth:* A Blank GenerationIn his second feature film, Nagisa Oshima explores the alienation of young Japanese people and their doomed attempts to assert themselves in a corrupt and increasingly conservative society.##### *Hud: *No Place for HeroesA career-altering artistic breakthrough for director Martin Ritt, this dark tale of a family’s downfall daringly exposes the mythology of the western hero as empty and morally bankrupt.##### *Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore:* At Home in the WorldMade in close collaboration with its star, Ellen Burstyn, Martin Scorsese’s first film for a major studio is a warm, openhearted portrait of a woman who endeavors a drastic reshaping of her life.You have no items in your shopping cart