ABSTRACT
The story narrated by In a Year of Thirteen Moons, that of the last five days in the life of a despairing transsexual, is nearly submerged in textual excess. The explicit presence of text as text, often recited by the actors in a detached voice, as if reading directly from the script; the plurality of textual sources and styles—vernacular, literary, philosophical; the disjunction of text from image: this textual overdetermination constantly threatens to disrupt the narrative. Yet it is precisely this logorrhea which structures the film, gives it its particular, odd appeal. That, and the brilliant performance by Volker Spengler as the character Erwin/Elvira.
