Gianluca Matarrese’s observational documentary GEN_ tackles the hot topic of fertility and transgender healthcare in such a humanist and warm manner that you can only feel refreshed and optimistic when people like Dr. Bini exist.

At Milan’s Niguarda public hospital, the unconventional Dr. Bini leads a bold mission overseeing aspiring parents undergoing in vitro fertilisation and the journeys of individuals reconciling their bodies with their gender identities. He navigates the constraints set by a conservative government and an aggressive market eager to commodify bodies.

Gender transitioning is a boiling hot topic at the best of times in today’s climate, but combining that with fertility treatment opens up a lava-filled fissure of opinions that would almost certainly bring on a migraine to end all migraines. It’s such an incredibly sensitive topic that, at the beginning of GEN_, you are almost wary of how the documentary will unfold.

Happily, Matarrese treats this sensitive topic with care and purposely maintains a distance from his subjects, allowing them to go through consultations and moments as privately as possible. We see how broad their emotions, trauma, and worries are. In these worries, we have a woman who is more concerned about the colour of her skin and that of her future children, so she picks a white donor so that her child will have “a chance” once born.

We encounter countless moments like this as Dr Bini listens and offers his opinion, but what remains through all of these courageous struggles of his patients is empathy. Dr Bini has it in spades, and if you somehow come out of the film without some of these patients, then I don’t know what to tell you. These are humans who are desperate and vulnerable, and thankfully, with the retirement of Dr. Maurizio Bini, we have someone who can handle the cases.

Where GEN_ stumbles is when it tries to take on more than it should, given its runtime. By following more than just a couple of patients, the film feels stretched, preventing the audience from being fully engaged in the patients’ stories. This slight repetition in patients revealing their issues with Dr Bini would usually frustrate. Still, considering how vulnerable and intimate these discussions are, you almost forget it and instead actively want to learn more about their story and the result of their journey.

The main thread throughout all of the film is, of course, Dr Bini; if you require the treatment in which he specialises, then there is no better doctor. A man of pure warmth and understanding, he listens to his patients while not withholding from them the struggles they will face. He is a hopeful, yet realistic person, and you are greatly endeared to him. What helps our positive feelings towards him is how Matarrese shoots him. For the most part, he is shot with a soft focus as if Matarrese saw how Dr Bini treated his patients and decided to match it with how we see him visually.

GEN_ somehow keeps what could be as serious a documentary as you will see, light. This is mostly from Dr Bini, who knows precisely how to relieve the stresses of his patients with a perfectly positioned piece of humour. At a time when governments are trying to gut services to those who need them because of the government’s political views, it is so heartening to see how those on the ground remove such thoughts and just focus on the patient, long may it continue.

★★★★

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