The Paper Mirror

Filmmaker Charissa King-O'Brien's The Paper Mirror tells the story of a cross-country collaboration between two artists who are both in a process of transition. Chicago-based Riva Lehrer came to prominence through her portraits of disabled subjects seen in a variety of fanciful scenarios, while East Coast-based Alison Bechdel originally made her mark with the decade-long comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For. In recent years, Lehrer, who has spina bifida, has switched to non-disabled subjects, while Bechdel has since segued into writing graphic memoirs centering on her parents. Crediting Bechdel for facilitating her coming out, Lehrer teams up with Bechdel to create a new work—photographs of Bechdel that depict the writer's mother as her shadow, a reflection of the book Bechdel is working on, Are You My Mother?, the follow-up to her award-winning Fun Home (2006). Lehrer thinks Bechdel is "extremely beautiful," although her subject begs to differ. When Lehrer shows the finished piece to Bechdel in 2011, the photographer describes it as "transitional." And while the experience doesn't appear to have transformed Bechdel in any obvious way, it did allow the women to work together in a truly collaborative manner, and freed Lehrer to chart a new path in her work. Sure to be appreciated by Bechdel's legion of fans, this is recommended. Aud: C, P. (K. Fennessy)