FIRST FEMALE INFANTRY OFFICER

by PETER THOMAS BUSCH

Sandra Perron made her way through the worst as the first.

In Out Standing (2025) the first female infantry officer in the Canadian military is able to keep up as she is put through the paces of basic training.

Director Melanie Charbonneau begins with those first few weeks in the military as a fulfillment of a kind of requirement for military films to begin there. But this film is no ordinary military film.

Charbonneau follows the constant emotional and psychological abuse Perron received as the first and only female, after the other three female candidates dropped out because of the hazing or could not keep up with the basics. The film never really gets to a military mission and instead focusses on Perron’s day to day experiences.

The narrative begins with Perron, played by Nina Kiri, getting off a military transport plane for the last time as she resigns. Kiri shows Perron had deep trauma on the inside while refusing to complain about her treatment that caused the trauma.

The narrative jumps about in time a bit as the director repeatedly refers to extended scenes from the wraparound now and then throughout the film before going back to basic training, then back to the real time wraparound, and then back to a training exercise later in Perron’s career.

Kiri depicts Perron as being able to succeed as an infantry captain although also being incrementally traumatized by the targeting, of her as a female, by male soldiers.

If time is not constant, the harassment is constant throughout the film, and the trauma seems to eventually catch up to the camera.

Charbonneau uses dark shadows and frequent silhouettes within cleverly framed scenes, although she always shoots in a 1990s television light, under incandescents, no doubt.

The scenes become more internalized as Kiri shows how Perron gradually becomes so traumatized as to be cornered into just wanting to give up. And that even when Perron succeeds later in her military career, the resentment toward her by many of the male soldiers continues.

It is all so sordid and ever so subtle at times – but frequently quite flagrant in public for everyone to witness.

The film also discusses uniquely feminine issues other than the difficulty of entering the male dominated military, such as relationship troubles and the need to have an abortion performed so as not to lose her spot in the infantry.

Perron was an army brat whose father had a 35 year military career. Kiri shows how Perron is motivated by having wanted to be an infantry officer all her life, moving from army base to army base with her father when his assignment changed, and then joining the cadets before entering the infantry program.

Antoine Rochette composes a score that Charbonneau uses throughout the film to underscore, in nearly every scene from beginning to end, that Perron has experienced severe emotional and psychological abuse, and that she is only realizing now, in real time (wraparound), the trauma that has been previously internalized.

Overall, everyone and everything is directed to this eventuality as bits and pieces of trauma start to surface during scenes. But the desired effect could have been emphasized a bit more for the big screen.

Charbonneau has brought all the elements together, though, with interesting direction and frequent flourishes of creativity.  Having worked hard, the cast and crew succeed in making this dramatization interesting and thought provoking without leaving the concept that what happened to Perron was real and was ultimately damaging to her psyche.