Rose, which earned Sandra Huller the Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance at the Berlin International Film Festival, is a bizarre and beautiful black-andwhite film depicting the tragedy of a person who chose to live as a crossdressing woman for the sake of freedom. In a 17th-century German Protestant village in the aftermath of the Thirty Years’ War, a soldier named Rose appears, claiming to be the heir to an abandoned farm. The villagers are wary and suspicious of this enigmatic outsider in every way, largely because he appears to be a woman masquerading as a man. In truth, Rose’s life is little more than a sandcastle built on deception. Yet who has the right to declare that life a lie? Is Rose’s crime an act of blasphemy against God, or an insult to men? Rose has no intention of confining herself to the fixed gender roles imposed by society. Yearning for, “There’s more freedom in trousers.” she crosses beyond the boundaries of life permitted to women. Rose is not the story of a woman who wanted to be a man, but the tale of a human being who could not live as a woman. (LEE Juhyun)