Bitch Flicks – Page 89

Fairytale Prostitution in ‘Angel’

Angel, a 1984 cult film, attempts to be both a melodrama about a teen hooker forced to face her life choices (as the trailer proclaims it “A Very Special Motion Picture”) and a very 80s crime thriller where a tough-talking street kid teams up with a cop to catch a killer, but the resulting film is a mess of clashing tones that seems more campy than hard-hitting.

This guest post by Elizabeth Kiy appears as part of our theme week on Cult Films and B Movies.

The prostitute is a common figure in the landscape of crime film–she’s a scared witness, a disposable victim or a condemned woman whose character is rarely fleshed out enough to reveal her as a person. In genres like melodrama and after-school specials, where she is a protagonist, the real-life horrors and anxiety of her work are made explicit and over shadow any possible upside.

Angel, a 1984 cult film, attempts to be both a melodrama about a teen hooker forced to face her life choices (as the trailer proclaims it “A Very Special Motion Picture”) and a very 80s crime thriller where a tough-talking street kid teams up with a cop to catch a killer, but the resulting film is a mess of clashing tones that seems more campy than hard-hitting.

This conflict is clear in the music video for the film’s theme song, “You’ve Got Something Sweet” by the Allies, which hilariously juxtaposes bright, sitcom-ready music with images of men slipping money down a teenage girl’s shirt, the main character, Molly (Donna Wilkes) discovering her friend’s beaten and bloody body, the serial killer ominously shaving his head, and Molly running terrified. And then, in the midst of the lead up to a crime story, there are images of Molly fixing her make-up and walking down the street laughing and smiling.

What’s even more surprising is how much fun Molly’s life looks.

A typical image evoking street prostitution, similar to those used in news reports

In a real world context, the story of the movie is tragic: Abandoned by her parents, Molly has been working as a teenage prostitute since she was twelve, and the adults in her life who make up her surrogate family fail to provide her with other options or suggest they disapprove. While there are characters like the detective and Molly’s guidance counselor who want to help her and a moral message about the desperation and abandonment that give young women no choice but to turn to prostitution seems intended, the film is unwilling to commit to an entirely negative portrayal of Molly’s life.

Instead, viewers are presented with an extended teenage fantasy of complete independence and sexual exploration with bits about murder thrown in. Molly has all the things teenage girls want; there is no one who can tell her what to do, she feels beautiful and in control of her life, and her only moments of awkwardness stem from feeling more mature than her classmates. She lives comfortably in her own apartment, goes to a private school and, at the film’s start, seems to have no worries about the really awful things that could happen in the course of her work. Rather than portraying the detective story of typical violence on the streets or hooker murders that get swept under the rug, this murder case seems instead to be a momentary intrusion into Angel’s fairytale life.

The sequence of Molly getting ready gives her a "glamor moment" familiar to most women — The sequence of Molly getting ready gives her a “glamor moment” familiar to most women

In one scene, soft music plays as Molly sits in front of the mirror, having a “glamor moment.” In a series of close-ups, she carefully puts on her make-up and fixes her hair, smiling excitedly at her reflection, transforming from school girl to sex worker.

While the viewer knows the film’s protagonist is a prostitute going in because of its promotional material, the opening scenes of Molly at school function as if the viewer doesn’t know.

In doing so, the film drives the viewer to compare the two distinct images and attempts to make the contrast between them jarring.

Molly is first introduced to viewers as an ordinary schoolgirl, as the film intends to contrast her two lives — Molly is introduced to viewers as an ordinary girl, as the film intends to contrast her two lives

A Madonna/Whore dichotomy is further suggested in the film’s posters, which read “High School Honor Student by Day, Hollywood Hooker by Night,” suggesting viewers will be shocked to discover they can be one and the same. (Streetwalkin’, a 1985 film has a similar tagline, “She dropped out of high school this morning. Tonight she’s a Times Square hooker.”)

Instead, Molly could be a girl getting ready for a date or a dance. In the end result, she does not appear transformed, just a more polished version of her everyday self. Because this glamor moment is so familiar to many women from their own lives, it instead draws viewer identification and brings positive associations.

Though on one hand, the sequence suggests teenage Molly’s transformation to adulthood, it could also be interpreted as a subtle indication that she is not as grown up as she feels she is. For me, this scene brings to mind young girls dressing up in their mothers’ clothes, projecting a grown-up image over a child body. As it is followed by scenes on city streets at night, it is also reminiscent of a girl going clubbing.

Dressed for work in lace socks and club-ready separates, Molly's transformation from schoolgirl to prostitute is far from extreme — Dressed for work in lace socks and club-ready separates, Molly’s transformation from schoolgirl to prostitute is far from extreme

In these scenes, Molly strolls confidently down the street, greeting people as she passes and sharing inside jokes and nicknames. When someone she passes condemns her for prostitution, she continues smiling, as if these outsiders will never understand her free and adventurous world. These scenes are portrayed as if she is going home, and to me, they recall walking though high school hallways and greeting friends.

On the street, Molly has put together a surrogate family for herself, populated by the types of characters teenage girls growing up in the suburbs dream of finding in the city, Diane Arbus photos shot through the lens of Lisa Frank.

Molly enjoys quality time with Mae (Dick Shawn) and Kit Carson (Rory Calhoun), members of her street family — Molly enjoys quality time with Mae (Dick Shawn) and Kit (Rory Calhoun), members of her street family

Her friends, a transvestite who acts as her surrogate mother, a cowboy movie actor/stuntman, and a butch landlady are presented as outsiders who banded together to support each other in a world that had rejected them. This is mostly implied, but is shown literally through the cowboy, once a star but now a has-been doing stunts for money on the street. Because of this, in parts the film has a certain heartwarming tone, constantly reminding the viewer Molly has a “family” who loves her, even as it descends deeper into a crime thriller. Though she has the independence to be in charge of her life, she does not have to shoulder the burden alone.

The films seem to suggest that by working and supporting herself, she has matured past her peers and doesn’t belong in their world. As such, one of Angel’s trailers repeats the line, “Angel, it’s her choice, her chance, her life,” glamorizing Molly’s independence and avoiding mention of the factors that made prostitution not a choice but a necessity for her.

By emphasizing Molly’s youth and innocence with the title Angel, the schoolgirl, already a figure of sexual fantasy for some, is cast here as an attainable object. The viewer is told that Molly is a hooker, but never sees her nude or actually having sex. Strangely, the high school cheerleaders she notices in the locker room, who are shown showering fully nude, are more sexualized than she is.

As such, the scene where Molly casually informs the detective that she’s slept with hundreds of men is difficult to believe based on how chastely she has been portrayed. To this end, the film portrays her as a child, joking with her friends and taking breaks from work to go get ice creams and do her homework in hotel lobbies.

Molly takes a break from work to finish her homework and keep up her honor student status

In school, Molly dresses childishly, with pigtails and matching pastels, perhaps to emphasize the contrast. While other prostitutes are dressed in skimpy lingerie or are topless, Molly’s hooker wear is not dissimilar from what a teenage girl would wear to a club.

Conversely, Molly’s independence could be seen as coming from the sacrifice of her innocence or virginity. She is allowed to inhabit dark, dangerous places her classmates will never see as she has entered into an illegal activity and with it, a criminal underworld. As a criminal in this respect, she is given qualities usually reserved for male characters, such as toughness, inclusion in masculine spaces and the ability to use a gun. She also displays enviable bravery as in calling the police, she risks arrest, exposure, or a foster home.

Lieutenant Andrews warns Molly about the killer and her high-risk lifestyle

Homicide detective Lieutenant Andrews, who would be the lead in any other crime drama, functions in relation to Molly and is presented as a secondary character. Viewers don’t see his life outside the case, and the film follows Molly’s story rather than his investigation. Though he is the adult and authority figure, she has power over him, both in his inability to actively save her and his reliance on her to find the killer. The film’s tonal clashes are also apparent in the image of Molly, a young girl in a dress and heels wielding a gun that nearly knocks her over when she fires it, which is presented for comedic effect. Rather than giving Molly the power to cooly seek vengeance for her friends, the suggested unnaturalness of this image through her girlish dress, small size and her friends’ attempts to stop her, further compounds her innocent image instead of tarnishing it.

It is interesting to note that the film does not suggest prostitution on a whole is safe and wonderful, but that for Molly it usually is. She’s the exception, who is able to maintain her status as an “Angel” and with it the suggestion of purity, while other women around her are scantily clad and brutalized. In this fashion, the film suggests, she is young enough to be redeemed and live a different life, but older women in more desperate circumstances are long past helping and thus, must be concerned with things like violence, rape, STDs and unwanted pregnancy that are outside of Molly’s orbit. As mentioned before, the crime story of the movie, an (albeit exaggerated) norm for these other women, is presented as an unusual episode in her otherwise happy life. Still, Molly is always able to protect herself and in incidences where she is threatened by the killer and when two of her classmates try to rape her, she takes control of the situation and forces them to leave her alone.

Molly has a rare moment of anxiety and fear late at night

This viewpoint, that the bad things could happen to anyone else, but would never happen to oneself, appears to me to be a very immature, adolescent idea. Likewise, there are many teenage girls who glamorize prostitution as being wanted, or getting paid to be beautiful and enjoy expensive dinners, presents and sex, ignoring the circumstances that drive desperate women to prostitution or the danger and discomfort that even women who choose to be sex workers must take measures against.

However, the film ends abruptly and without any real closure, giving the viewer no sense of what will happen to Molly now with all the changes in her life. It is unknown whether she will go back to her life of fairytale prostitution, go into foster care or find some other solution (in the sequel, Avenging Angel, Molly is off the streets and attending college). Ultimately, I believe this abrupt ending contributes to the film’s fantasy image of prostitution. The viewers don’t have to see Molly live with the consequences, both of picking up the gun intending to kill the villain and of prostitution itself, so it can remain an escapist fantasy. Not a trauma, but another adventure she has bravely overcome.

Elizabeth Kiy has a degree in journalism with a minor in film from Carleton University. She lives in Toronto, Ontario and is currently working on a novel.

‘Slumber Party Massacre’: Deconstructing the Male Gaze

Slumber Party Massacre came up while I was searching for female directors in the exploitation genre. Although it came off as yet another sensationalistic and gory 80s slasher, it stuck out, mainly due to its ridiculous title or the fact that most of the characters were female. Upon viewing it, what shocked me was not so much the gore and violence, but I was surprised by the clever humor, the funny characters, and most of all the incredibly veiled feminist satire.

The women of Slumber Party Massacre in the locker room — The women of *Slumber Party Massacre* in the locker room

This guest post by Emanuela Betti appears as part of our theme week on Cult Films and B Movies.

Slumber Party Massacre came up while I was searching for female directors in the exploitation genre. Although it came off as yet another sensationalistic and gory 80s slasher, it stuck out, mainly due to its ridiculous title or the fact that most of the characters were female. Upon viewing it, what shocked me was not so much the gore and violence, but I was surprised by the clever humor, the funny characters, and most of all the incredibly veiled feminist satire.

The movie was written to be a mock parody of exploitation movies, as well as a satire of masculinity in the slasher genre. However, the movie was marketed as a straight slasher movie, which ended up causing a lot of mixed opinions: while reading through reviews, some critics brushed off the movie as a boring slasher with gratuitous T&A, while others actually caught the humor and satire, and revered its feminist perspective. Slumber Party Massacre is actually a very feminist movie, and it’s a biting satire of the male gaze that exists in cinema. Through its witty and clever humor, the movie deconstructs the prevailing sexism and masculinity in the slasher genre, offering one of the most entertaining feminist exploitation movies ever made.

Slumber Party Massacre is very women-centric: both in the characters and the women behind the scenes. The film was directed by Amy Holden Jones, one of the few female directors to delve into the exploitation genre, and written by feminist Rita Mae Brown. This fact alone should make you want to pay attention to the small details, which in this movie are actually not that small but thrown right into your face.

The story revolves around Trish, a young high school girl who throws a slumber party at her house, and Valerie, Trish’s neighbor, who doesn’t attend the party and spends a boring evening at home. As you can already guess, the girls at the slumber party are eventually harassed by a silent killer. The movie begins in a typical suburban neighborhood, and we are introduced to Trish’s bedroom. Trish is the stereotypical image of innocence and femininity: her bedroom is full of plush toys and fluffy pinkness. We then move to a school setting in which we are introduced to Valerie, who is somewhat of an outsider to the popular group of girls led by Trish, but is an essential character in the story.

She doesn't see the dead body — She doesn’t see the dead body

One of the first scenes that made me raise an eyebrow was the shower scene: after gym class, the girls are in the school showers, where we see a lot of T&A, and not even in a clever or artistic way. That scene confused me—I couldn’t understand why a movie directed and written by women would objectify the female body in such a demeaning way. Maybe, at the end of the day, the director just wanted to make a buck? And didn’t really care? I later realized that nudity (and objectification) is actually a very important element in the story, along with sexual innuendos. An example is the killer’s weapon of choice, a 12-inch drill which he sometimes holds in suggestive places (like his crotch, as a phallic metaphor). Also, there are countless instances in which boys from Trish’s high school, or the killer himself, are staring, spying, or quietly watching the girls. I realized that the gratuitous nudity was not so much for the gratuity, but to directly point out how this group of girls is the target of a voyeuristic threat, and are purposely being objectified through these male character’s gazes to show that they are in fact the victims of the killer’s drill, but also of the male gaze. There is a scene that says it all, in which the kids walk past a dumpster where the body of one of the victims is lying in the trash, unnoticed. The movie is about what we see and what we don’t see, or more specifically, knowingly watching and unknowingly being watched. This is the basis for the concept of the male gaze in cinema, which is finding pleasure in looking at a person as an object, who becomes the unwilling or unknowing victim of the gaze.

What makes this movie such a clever satire is the twist placed on the male gaze, which we see in Valerie. The objectification of Trish and her friends is emphasized by the contrast with Valerie and her younger sister Courtney (probably the most interesting female character in the whole movie) who are actually the ones doing the objectifying. During the evening, Courtney pulls out an issue of Playgirl from under her sister’s bed, and later on, both girls casually look at full-page spreads of naked men. Trish and Valerie are opposites, not only in their personality and social life, but also in their role with the gaze. Throughout the movie, we never see Valerie naked, and there’s a good reason why; while Trish is the passive victim of the gaze, Valerie is the bearer of the gaze, she enjoys looking at pictures of naked men and is immune to the killer’s gaze. Valerie is the true heroine of the movie, and she saves the day by finding an equally phallic weapon (a machete) and “chopping off” the killer’s drill, basically castrating him metaphorically.

If there were are any doubts on whether Slumber Party Massacre is an intelligent feminist satire or just a regular slasher, all questions are answered when finally, after the killer goes on a bloody rampage without speaking a single word, he finally utters some of the most horrifying lines: “All of you are very pretty… I love you,” and “you know you want it, you’ll love it.” Those seem like the words of a rapist, and although the killer didn’t rape any of the girls, he did violate them: just like a rapist victimizes a woman by violating her body, the male gaze, which roams rampant in Hollywood cinema, violates women on the screen by turning them into objects.

Along with sharp satire and sharp commentary, Slumber Party Massacre is full of clever humor. There’s the scene where Valerie is relaxing at home, watching an old slasher movie while she’s a character in one herself (and the events on TV seem to sync up with what’s happening next door). Then there’s Courtney grabbing a drink from the fridge without noticing a dead body inside, or one of Trish’s friends eating a slice of pizza over the delivery boy’s dead body. Amy Holden Jones and Rita Mae Brown do a wonderful job at providing entertainment and humor, alongside a refreshing and sharp feminist viewpoint. If there’s any movie that made me respect cheesy exploitation movies, it’s this wonderfully cheesy slumber party slasher full of pizza, nudie magazines, and girls chopping off metaphorical penises.

Emanuela Betti is a part-time writer, occasional astrologer, neurotic pessimist by day and ball-breaking feminist by night. She miraculously graduated with a BA in English and Creative Writing, and writes about music and movies on her blog.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

The feminism of Working Girl, “respectability politics” in 12 Years a Slave, female filmmakers on Twitter, comedy and reproductive rights, female sexuality on primetime, “Black Actress” on YouTube, and a comic about abortion laws… check out what we’ve been reading this week, and let us know what you’ve been reading and writing in the comments!

Acting Right Around White Folks: on “12 Years a Slave” and “Respectability Politics,” by ReBecca Theodore-Vachon at RogerEbert.com

Amy Poehler introduces TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD at Alamo Drafthouse! at Drafthouse.com

Why female pleasure–not sex–is the real taboo on primetime television by Monica Nickelsburg at The Week

Carrie: A Possibly Unnecessary Remake of a Still-Resonant Horror Story by Andi Zeisler at Bitch Media

Healing from Historic Trauma: “12 Years a Slave” by Janell Hobson at Ms.

40 Female Filmmakers to Follow on Twitter: A Crowdsourced List by Paula Bernstein at Indiewire

The Hollywood Reporter Announced the Top 50 Showrunners by Kerensa Cadenas at Women and Hollywood

Black Girl ‘Geeks’ Want To See More Of Themselves In Comics at NPR

Carol Burnett Cracks Up Washington by Ashley Southall at The New York Times

Call for Applications: Her Film Project Marketing Grant for Women Filmmakers by Kyna Morgan at Her Film

Everything I Know About Feminism I Learned From Working Girl by Rosemary Counter at Jezebel

‘Black Actress’ Web Series Premieres on Issa Rae’s YouTube Channel by Von Diaz at Colorlines

Comedy, Women, and Reproductive Rights: An Interview with Lizz Winstead by Hannah Strom at NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon

Purity Culture as Rape Culture: Why the Theological Is Political by Dianna E. Anderson at RH Reality Check

Stealth Attack: What You Need to Know About the New Abortion Laws (Comic) by Jen Sorensen at ACLU

What have you been reading/writing this week? Tell us in the comments!

‘Enough Said’: The Ex-Wife, the Masseuse, and Her Lover

James Gandolfini as Albert and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Eva

This is a guest post by Heather Brown.

The only other Nicole Holofcener film I had seen before Enough Said (2013) was Walking and Talking (1996), a delightful indie movie about Gen X-ers trying to navigate love and friendship in NYC. Though there are many fans of the movies she made in between these two—and many compelling reviews—I wasn’t sure I needed to hurry up and watch them. I figured that I, like many viewers, pretty well know that rich, white people have problems just like the rest of us. Granted, most of us generally slog through life without quandaries like having to worry about why the maid insists on putting the hairbrush in the silverware drawer. But now that I’ve seen Holofcener’s latest you can bet that I’ll be moving other films like Please Give (2010) and Lovely and Amazing (2001) up on my Netflix queue.

Enough Said is set against the backdrop of people in L.A. with economic and social privilege that goes unremarked upon, but Holofcener does not dwell on these factors and instead shines a light on the flaws and vulnerabilities of middle-aged single parents in a way that is sympathetic and tender. It doesn’t hurt that one of these characters, Albert, is played by the late James Gandolfini, whose slobby charm is made even more winsome by fact that this was one of his final film performances. Albert is about as sweet and low-key as Tony Soprano was fierce and explosive, and it’s easy to see how the earthy masseuse Eva (played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus) finds him endearing.

Catherine Keener as Marianne and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Eva in Enough Said — Catherine Keener as Marianne and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Eva in *Enough Said*

As the story goes, Albert and Eva are introduced at a party, and later he asks her out to dinner. Unbeknownst to them both, the party that brought them together also put Eva in conversation with Albert’s ex-wife, Marianne, played by Catherine Keener. Marianne is a poet, which Eva finds intriguing. And as it happens, Marianne is also in need of a good masseuse. You know what happens next. Would that Albert and Marianne’s separation was an amicable one, perhaps there would be nothing to discuss about her ex as she lay prone on the massage table as Eva works her magic. Not so, of course. Once Eva realizes that the man she finds herself growing more and more attracted to is the very man Marianne can’t cease to skewer during each massage, trouble starts brewing.

What follows is Eva eagerly drinking in Marianne’s ire about Albert, as she reads Eva a list of his faults. Unsurprisingly, many of these shortcomings involve his eating, hygiene, dress, and home décor tendencies. (As Marianne tells her, “My ex-husband and I had zero in common, and I was completely repulsed by him sexually.”) Eva can’t seem to trust her own feelings and judgment and gets deeper into a one-sided friendship with Marianne, whose narcissism is almost too obvious for Eva to notice.

All that said, the plot really turns on Eva’s relationship with her daughter Ellen (Tracey Fairaway), and her impending departure to college on the opposite coast. Eva is having a difficult time losing her daughter to this inevitable next step (and indeed, so is Albert, whose daughter Tess, played by Eve Hawson, is also on her way out of the nest). Because we follow Eva’s story the closest, we, too, are put through the emotional ringer of seeing Eva express her desire to pull Ellen tighter by proxy of Ellen’s friend Chloe (Tavi Gevinson), who feels closer to Eva than she does her own mother. Ellen resents her mother’s misplaced neediness, and their conflict is handled with nuance and grace. And it’s not as if Eva’s married friends Will and Sarah (played by Ben Falcone and Toni Colette) have it figured out; Sarah, for instance, is obsessed with rearranging the furniture, which Will finds perplexing. Their exchanges are especially amusing, as is much of the film overall.

Still from Enough Said — Still from *Enough Said*

What I found most compelling about this film is Eva’s obsession with Albert’s physicality, but not for the reasons you might expect. Yes, Albert is clearly overweight and could stand to show up to a second date with a button-down instead of a T-shirt, but it’s the way that Eva tallies up his faults that shows her to be the one who could stand to do some work on herself. Audiences are quite used to seeing relationships in romantic comedies wherein men and women’s attractiveness is asymmetrical (see: almost every Judd Apatow film). If you’re like me, you find this troubling and tired and yet another example of Hollywood’s gendered double standard. But Enough Said calls into question Eva’s superficiality and preoccupation with Albert’s physical flaws (from his caloric intake to his loud, labored nose breathing) rather than condone her attitude as a reasonable response. Holofcener offers a subtle yet powerful critique of women’s tendencies to promote amongst themselves an ethos of moral superiority as expressed in physical health and well-being. After all, the central irony of Eva is that while her livelihood is to provide a healthful touch, she will not allow herself to be the recipient of the same tenderness. Practicing massage requires acceptance and kindness toward the body—something that does not come easy to her when it comes to letting herself connect with Albert.

Without spoiling the ending, let’s just say Enough Said leaves us with a sweetly unresolved last scene. It’s rare that a romantic-comedy hints that in fact, yes, it is possible for people to come together without the expectation that one or both people need to change in order to win the other’s affection. Holofcener’s film makes a refreshing case for suspending judgment for the sake of trusting one’s gut feeling—and the importance of following your own way.

Heather Brown lives in Chicago, Ill., and works as a freelance instructional designer and online writing instructor. She lives for feminism, movies, live music, road trips, and cheese.

Seed & Spark: A Balancing Act: A Year of Film

At the same time I’d been reading a lot of reports about how underrepresented women filmmakers are. I’d seen a lot of fabulous films directed by women, but I recognized that there were many more women-made films I had yet to see. I actually had NO IDEA how true that was until I launched into this process, but that insight sparked my idea to create a year of film watching that focused on films made in the past ten years, and gender balanced my viewing. So here’s the vision: over the course of a year I’d watch films directed by women and men in equal number. Every day I’d see at least one feature film and one short. I chose to put my attention on films from the past decade, so I could tune in to the powerful energies of film creation arising on the planet at this time.

This is a guest post by Barbara Ann O’Leary.

I’m having a great year in film viewing. I attribute that in large part to my choice to take conscious charge of what I see. It’s a process, rocky at times, but it’s been an amazingly eye opening adventure. I call it A Yearlong Film Viewing Balancing Act.

Yes, that’s a clunky name with a cryptic hashtag #yfvba, but I rather like it. It’s a little strange and obsessive. I think I’m on to something.

I’m an enormous lover of film. I watch a LOT of films, but I’d started questioning what my film viewing choices were based on. Media hype? Friends’ suggestions? Whatever just happened to be showing at the local theater? Pressure I put on myself to be able to say I’d seen all the so-called great films?

Why not just dedicate myself to watching women-made films for a whole year? That would be a great project too. That might be what someone else needs to do, but for me it’s about inviting harmony. It’s about fostering balance in my own film-loving life, and it’s about recognizing that as an individual I have the power to impact the entire world of cinema through my film viewing choices.

What? Change the entire world by film watching?! Yes. I really think so.

When I launched A Yearlong Film Viewing Balancing Act on May 4th, which was the day the idea struck me, I created a manifesto of sorts. It started off like this:

“Today I begin a yearlong film viewing balancing act… where I dedicate myself to inviting authentic creative expression to flourish in the world in a balanced and harmonious way by bringing my attention to–and opening to receive–the creative motion picture outpourings of women and men filmmakers in equal measure.”

To me this was an act of power, a fierce awakening. What we put our attention on grows in our own lives and in the world at large. I’ve experienced that over and over again in my life. When I ask myself what I want to see flourish in the world I get this crystal clear answer: I want to live in a world where everyone’s authentic creative expression is honored, supported, and received fully. Film is my favorite form of artistic expression, so it’s a natural place for me to bring my awareness.

Through A Yearlong Film Viewing Balancing Act I’m making an unshakable commitment to be awake to what films I’m experiencing. I’m noticing and honoring who made them. The film world responds to viewer demand–not instantaneously, but over time–and I’m doing my part to call forth balance. Gender balance is not the only balance I value, but I’m inviting it to serve as a grounding force for balance in all other aspects of life.

Even if no one else is changed by this process, I know I will be. I already am, and I’m only halfway through the 365 day process. As I’ve been blogging, tweeting, Facebooking, and talking about the adventure with others, I am noticing that things are starting to shift in the wider world, so I’m gaining confidence that my actions are making a difference. That’s delightful to me.

Here are a few things that have already shifted in my life, because of this experience:

I have become aware that MANY women are in fact filmmaking. Five months ago I started a list on IMDb to help me find the world of Women Filmmakers: Active in the past decade. Astonishingly, without even making an effort, I’ve grown that list to 2,338 filmmakers. That’s just a start. Women do in fact make movies. And many of them tweet. I’ve located 863 so far and gathered them into a list.

Starting out on this adventure I’d feared that to keep my theatrical film viewing even I would have to struggle, but although women-made films are underrepresented in theaters, I have been able to go out to see an even number of movies directed by women and men without difficulty. Yes, it’s taken some focus and planning, but by combining multiplex, art house, and film festival viewings, I’ve been able to stay even. As of today I have seen 23 man-made films, 24 woman-made films, and 4 films by mixed gender directing teams out at theaters. Including films I’ve streamed, watched on disc or on TV, I’m up to 219 features. Men- and women-made films are running neck and neck.

It’s ridiculous to generalize about filmmakers by gender. Each filmmaker is unique and expresses her or his own vision of self and world. For instance, I’ve found both woman- and man-made films to be tender explorations of love and family. Jeff Nichols’ Mud, David Lowery’s Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, Ava DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere, and Lake Bell’s In a World… come to mind. And women-made films can be as harsh as any man’s.

[youtube_sc url=”http://youtu.be/Vatw1xlgZJM” title=”Ava%20DuVernay%27s%20Middle%20of%20Nowhere%20trailer”]

Ava DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere trailer

[youtube_sc url=”http://youtu.be/b_gGlYCMye4″ title=”David%20Lowery%27s%20Ain%27t%20Them%20Bodies%20Saints%20trailer”]

David Lowery’s Ain’t Them Bodies Saints trailer

I feel more centered and grounded when I’m saying YES to authentic creative expression that arises in a balanced way.

The journey is ongoing. If you’d like to join me, I’d love your company. Come find me at O’Leary’s Reel Life on Tumblr, Twitter, or Facebook , etc. Tell me how your film viewing adventures are unfolding. And stay tuned for my new podcast–under development.

Barbara Ann O’Leary, Indiana University Cinema’s Outreach Specialist, loves to help people engage authentically. Recent projects include: Every Everything: The Music, Life & Times of Grant Hart (Executive Producer), Indy Film Festival (Screening Committee), Indiana Filmmakers Network Made in Bloomington Film Series (Programmer), Bloomington Screenwriting Community (Founder/Facilitator). A Film Explorer/Blogger, Barbara shares her adventures in film and reports on her initiative A Yearlong Film Viewing Balancing Act at O’Leary’s Reel Life: http://olearysreellife.tumblr.com/

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

This week, we’ve been reading about Amy and Tina hosting the Golden Globes, the new films Carrie and 12 Years a Slave, the body positivity of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, media representation of African American women, and more. Tell us what you’ve been reading/writing in the comments!

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler sign on to host Golden Globes through 2015 by Jeff Labrecque at Entertainment Weekly

‘Rocky Horror’ And Body Positivity At Midnight by Matthew Weddig at NPR

Hollywood Finally Catches Up With History (12 Years a Slave) by Salamishah Tillet at The Root

‘Carrie’ Is Back. So Is Kimberly Peirce. by Mary Kaye Schilling at The New York Times

The Most Ridiculous Mystical Pregnancies in Fiction by Katharine Trendacosta at io9

“Hollywood’s Not Interested in Stories About Women.” by Sarah Mirk at Bitch Media

5 Highlights from Women Film Pioneers Project: African-American Women in Silent Film, Women Camera Operators and More at Indiewire

The Internet’s Problem with TV Wives at Funny or Die

Heroines of Cinema: ‘Blue is the Warmest Color’ and the Real Problem With Mal Filmmakers and Female Sexuality by Matthew Hammett Knott at Indiewire

Watch: Melissa Harris-Perry on “the invisible middle” of media representations of African American women by Syreeta at Feministing

Mulan Is Bisexual On ‘Once Upon A Time,’ Disney-ABC Show by James Nichols at The Huffington Post

10 Funny Black Women Who Would Rock “Saturday Night Live” by Erika Star at AfterEllen

Women Battle Online Anti-Women Hate From the ‘Manosphere’ by Alyssa Pry and Alexa Valiente at ABC

Does History Repeat Itself, But With More Porn? by Philip N. Cohen at The Society Pages

College Men: Stop Getting Drunk by Ann Friedman

Meet the Victorian women who fought back by Simon Heffer at The New Statesman

What have you been reading/writing this week? Tell us in the comments!

‘Afternoon Delight’: Don’t Hang Your Shame on Me

Let’s face it: many of us feminists will pay lip service to sex workers’ rights while at the same time hold within us a mess of conflicting feelings around the subject. In fact, many of us are probably a bit more repressed about sex than we’d care to admit. The idea that there are women who voluntarily seek out such work has long been a feminist conundrum. But perhaps the bigger problem is the paternalistic impulse of feminists trying to rescue sex workers. Jill Soloway, the writer and director of Afternoon Delight knows this all too well. As she says in an interview about the film, “It’s not just about rescue. If you’re into rescue go rescue the garment workers. It’s about amping up your own relationship to your own shame around sex.”

Afternoon Delight movie poster — *Afternoon Delight* movie poster

This is a guest post by Heather Brown. [contains spoilers]

Let’s face it: many of us feminists will pay lip service to sex workers’ rights while at the same time hold within us a mess of conflicting feelings around the subject. In fact, many of us are probably a bit more repressed about sex than we’d care to admit. The idea that there are women who voluntarily seek out such work has long been a feminist conundrum. But perhaps the bigger problem is the paternalistic impulse of feminists trying to rescue sex workers. Jill Soloway, the writer and director of Afternoon Delight, knows this all too well. As she says in an interview about the film, “It’s not just about rescue. If you’re into rescue go rescue the garment workers. It’s about amping up your own relationship to your own shame around sex.”

Here’s the story: a bored woman named Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) lives in a bright, airy Silver Lake, L.A. home with her app-designing husband and toddler. Rachel doesn’t work but busies herself with event planning and local charities linked to her local Jewish Community Center. We see her in therapy sessions, spinning her wheels to justify and normalize her ennui (“Six months, no sex…I feel like there are a lot of couples who go through dry spells.” Her therapist, played by a wry Jane Lynch, replies, “Not healthy couples”). Her best friend, Stephanie (Jessica St. Clair), suggests that Rachel go to a strip club for a change of pace. She says of she and her husband: “We go there, get all hot, and then we bang each other when we get home.” Then, a night out with friends at a strip club finds her face-to-face with a young woman named McKenna (Juno Temple), who delivers Rachel a lap-dance at the behest of her husband. She’s sufficiently discomfited, but her curiosity is awakened.

McKenna (Juno Temple) and Rachel (Kathryn Hahn)

It’s Rachel’s curiosity that leads her back to the neighborhood of the strip club in the sober light of day, where she happens to see McKenna in the midst of one of those breakups where everything you own ends up in the trunk of a car and strewn on the sidewalk. Rachel invites McKenna to stay with her for a few days, and then offers her the long-term gig of being her live-in nanny. Soon, Rachel learns that McKenna is more than a stripper when McKenna reveals matter-of-factly, “I’m a full service sex worker.” This knowledge changes Rachel’s posture toward McKenna, and she tells her, “If you want out of that life, I can help you.” So it begins: Rachel attempts to take McKenna under her wing, but as the film progresses, we start to wonder exactly who most needs being saved—and all signs point to Rachel.

While the film crescendos with a big “uh-oh” scene, the most compelling moments are those in which women are sharing experiences of raw, ugly honesty. These are instances when shame is pulled back, and we see the guts and blood of their perfectly curated lives. Two scenes are especially haunting (you won’t see these in the trailer).

In the first, Rachel accompanies McKenna on a call to one of her clients. This is a man who enjoys having another woman watch him while he is having sex with McKenna, and Rachel tells her she wants to do it. Rather than giving us just a taste of what happens in a before-and-after editing sequence, Soloway brings us into the room to watch Rachel watch McKenna on the job, as it were. The camera holds the gaze of the client, an overweight middle-aged man with ample body hair, who remains fixed on Rachel as he climaxes with McKenna sitting on top of him.

To me, what’s most troubling is the way that Rachel regards McKenna afterward. She becomes withholding, and in a symbolic rejection, prevents McKenna from babysitting a large group of her friends’ kids so they can have a ladies’ wine night. Rachel blames McKenna for what she has now learned about herself—which is a dehumanizing act. Yet, Kathryn Hahn imbues such a degree of sympathy to the performance that we can almost forgive her. This brings me to the second scene.

Ladies’ wine night: as the night begins, women are talking, laughing, over-sharing in ways that are funny and blunt. Soon, the teeth become wine-stained and—yep—out pours Rachel’s shame. When Stephanie reveals that she’s pregnant (no wine for her), Rachel’s first response is that this now means she’s going to be the only one among them with just one child. Later, as she’s drunker and drunker, Rachel weeps and self-flagellates for never printing out any of the photos of her child (she only has them on the “cloud”).

What I find so amazing about these two scenes (and don’t worry, there’s plenty I didn’t spoil) is that they show how Rachel is so desperate to reveal herself, to be intimately known. But when confronted with someone like McKenna—who is in the business of doing this and lot more—she can’t handle it.

I was reminded of another film after I saw this one: Elles (2011), in which Juliette Binoche plays a journalist writing a profile of French student prostitutes. She becomes involved in their world to an extent that it complicates her relationship to her bourgeois married, family life. There seems to be a subgenre of films featuring women who reckon with—or perhaps imagine—the role of the sex worker. While this can make for intriguing and rich storytelling, I can’t help but wonder what would happen if we made sex workers the subject, rather than the object.

Heather Brown lives in Chicago, Ill., and works as a freelance instructional designer and online writing instructor. She lives for feminism, movies, live music, road trips, and cheese.

Seed & Spark: Goodbye Camera Time

It was 2006, Los Angeles, and I was attending yet another audition technique seminar. I stood on the stage, hoping to fascinate and stun the visiting talent manager with my craft. I was hopeful when I saw that it was a young, black woman. Surely, this meant she was supportive of women and actors of color. I gave it all I had. Or, as good as one can give with dialogue for a one-dimensional, “cute, racially unspecific,” best friend role with no arc. The feedback changed my life.

“You are great, but you don’t look enough like Halle Berry.”

This is a guest post by Candice Sanchez McFarlane.

“You are great, but you don’t look enough like Halle Berry.”

Like lightning, clarity ran through me. Every role I had ever auditioned for was a poor attempt at filling a race or gender quota. Not because there aren’t good writers out there but because it doesn’t matter. It’s a business. What Hollywood wanted from female actors was to just look the part and say the words. This woman knew that for the machine to make money, she needed to be able to sell me. I was not an attractive commodity.

I started dissecting every film that was in production at the time. Even when a woman had written the original script, there was a man also listed as a writer. Even when a woman was the producer, there were far more men with producer titles. In every capacity, women were outnumbered. Except in front of the camera.

Despite a lifetime of acting classes, a five-year audition marathon trying to infuse life into flat black/latina characters and the loss of a dream I had for so long, I stopped. Right then. Cold turkey. There was no way for me to make an impact in front of the camera. There were enough people striving to book a role–many of whom look like Halle Berry.

I wanted to be behind the camera. I began taking writing and production more seriously. I focused on ways to develop and empower women in the business conversation of film. This presented an even greater challenge. Many of the women I came across were looking for the best way to market, finesse, and accept the films that were being made. Thinking like Capitalists.

The media spoon feeding its audience — The media spoon-feeding its audience

I wanted to be a satisfied audience member.

I couldn’t understand why these women weren’t identifying the issue instead of trying to assuage it. The issue in the very first step, the step that all the other steps are built upon. The step that allows actors to not have to look the part but to understand the complexities that go into every woman, fiction or otherwise.

The writing.

The writing became everything to me. I wrote until I couldn’t stand the clicking of the keys any longer. I attended any seminar (I could afford) that focused on writing. I joined groups for underrepresented writers in entertainment. I worked in branding/promotions in the industry with a focus on empowering women’s voice and issues. I hosted and taught groups of young women in high school and college who were interested in becoming writers, hoping to nurture their interest and support their goals. I sent my materials to every possible festival, contest, open submission that had a mailing address. I got back “encouraging” feedback like “strong writing but not what we are in the market for” or “love your voice but could you water it down a bit for the audience?” It amazed me each time because I WAS the audience for my work. The women and girls in my life WERE the basis for my characters. This was the true face of women but not the image the industry wanted women to see of themselves.

Every woman can see a romantic comedy for the first time and predict the ending. Every woman knows the tale of the power struggle that the successful female character has with her mate on television or that her success prevents her from finding a mate. Every woman can watch a sitcom and know exactly when the Mom’s desperately forced and unfunny lines will be delivered. Even though we know these things and can handle more intellectually stimulating content – we accept it.

For those who are more conscious of their content, they might deploy some effort and search for something indie, to feel like they are not just another part of this machine. I like to include myself in this group, but I keep coming to the same questions. Why is “indie” the place to find realistic female characters? If today’s society is full of women with fascinating lives and varied interests that do not all revolve around the same core story – why does our mainstream content not reflect it? Would we not pay the same $14 for a movie ticket about a woman we really connected with that we do for the one that is a caricature?

I believe that we would. I believe that if the content were accessible, it would be supported. The truth is we all have a say, if we choose to exercise it.

Through this journey, I have met wonderfully bold and gifted female writers and producers who are looking to make a way. In my current documentary, Click Here: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Making Movies, we are highlighting a new generation of storytellers who are doing it their way. People who have been met with the frustration of an industry that tells them there is no audience for their work and who choose to ignore it and make it anyway. These are women, men, and even students who are trailblazers in my eyes. The group may be small, but it is inspiring.

So what do we do in a world where you can do anything? We blog, we crowdfund, we search, we SXSW, we Hulu, we Netflix, we YouTube, we support and spread the word about the content that speaks to us. We don’t let ourselves get caught in the web of the lesser of all content evils. We seek out the content creators that we believe deserve a chance. We actualize our place in this world of film. We don’t remain passive audience members but active participants in the conversation. We do it because we now have the tools. We do it because it will eventually make a difference. If we do it enough and do it consistently and do it boldly, there will one day be a girl in an audition room who is reading for a role that feeds her mind and soul, that represents the emotion, intricacy and capability within every woman.

Forgive my rally call but now more than ever is the time.

Actress turned advertising executive turned branded content expert turned writer, producer and mommy–with creative prowess and keen business savvy–Candice has developed original content for major brands (Visa, Pepsi) and indie distribution alike. She is currently in production on the documentary Click Here: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Making Movies. More information can be found at http://www.seedandspark.com/studio/click-here-or-how-i-learned-stop-worrying-and-love-making-movies.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

This week we’ve been reading about how an actress prepares for violence in a film, women directors, the common flaw of TV’s strong women, and more. Tell us what you’ve been reading and writing this week in the comments!

The Good News and Bad News for Women in Film This Oscar Season by Esther Zuckerman at The Atlantic Wire

Actress Lupita Nyong’o Talks Preparing for Violence in Film ’12 Years a Slave’ by Jamilah King at Colorlines

Is This the Grossest Advertising Strategy of All Time? by Rebecca J. Rosen at The Atlantic

Frozen’s Head of Animation Says Animating Female Characters is Hard, Because Ladies are Really Emotional and Stuff by Rebecca Pahle at The Mary Sue

Will ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ Jump-Start a New Era of Erotic Filmmaking? by Tom Blunt at Word & Film

Weekly Update for October 11: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You by Kerensa Cadenas at Women and Hollywood

TV’s Strongest Female Characters Share One Stupid Flaw by Eliana Dockterman at TIME

Jamie Foxx Will Play Martin Luther King Jr In Oliver Stone-Directed Biopic for Dreamworks/WB by Tambay A. Obenson at Shadow and Act

‘American Horror Story: Coven’ Rape Scene Cheered On By Emma Roberts Haters at Oh No They Didn’t!

Just Spend the Rest of Your Day Perusing These Biographies of Women in Early Film by Maggie Lange at The Cut

Alice Munro, ‘Master’ Of The Short Story, Wins Literature Nobel by Camila Domonoske and Annalisa Quinn at NPR

The Notorious Life of a Nineteenth-Century Abortionist by Katha Pollitt at The Nation

Seed & Spark: ‘Gloria’: Dancing On Her Own

As we watch Gloria’s flailing, her triumphs, her mistakes, her fun, we can’t help but be reminded (and I was just by typing all those words) of another single lady on a smaller screen and a familiar part of the feminist zeitgeist: Girls’ Hannah Horvath. Only living in Santiago, Chile, all growed up. I’ve seen a couple of Gloria reviews mention Girls, but almost always in the context of the film’s sex scenes, the sort not traditionally shown, between bodies wider audiences (or producers) aren’t generally begging to see nude. But the character similarities don’t end there. Though they are generations and cultures apart, it continues with their flighty boyfriends, with their finding themselves alone in a dress on a beach without their belongings, with their ability to be irritating and down-to-earth simultaneously, and with their love of dancing.

This is a guest post by Amanda Trokan.

This is not a review of (the life-affirming! Berlin Festival prize-winning! Dare I say glorious?) Chilean comedy-drama Gloria. No. This is a call, nay an order, no, no a call (I’m an indecisive lady, right?) for women under 50 to go see a film that depicts a woman over 50 in such a way that you just might leave the theater as excited to get old (well, older, while we’re being polite) as I did. Not despite its titular character’s spinsterhood, but surprisingly because of it.

Gloria is no kind grandma stepping in to take care of the family when the leading-lady daughter’s marriage falls apart, nor a lonely grandma dealing with an ailing husband, nor a stubborn grandma slowly getting ill herself, nor the sassy single grandma making one-liners about her granddaughter’s sex life from the periphery. All that, one might expect from Hollywood. The 58-year-old divorcee grandma in Gloria (played by the vibrant Paulina García) is the center of our story as she casually takes up dating again, but mostly just continues living. And I mean really living.

I would like to say “living it up” here, but that phrase might suggest living lavish or fabulously. And while I personally think her life falls under that definition—smoking weed, having sex, romantic weekending—I understand the subjective nature of my opinion on lifestyle choices. (I tend to see the fun, or at least “interesting experience,” in waking up solo by the sea missing a shoe after a night of gambling—as Gloria does—rather than the shame in it.) What I objectively mean is: she is existing no differently from a woman of any other age, with some age-specific issues (ex-spouses, children, gastroplasty) but mostly universal, adult ones.

In Gloria, we are swiftly pulled into Gloria’s day-to-day life as she flirts, drinks, dances, deals with the various characters in her apartment complex, gives her blessing to her pregnant daughter who’s moving abroad for love, and embarks upon a new relationship with Rodolfo (Sergio Hernández), who has a family of his own to manage.

As we watch Gloria’s flailing, her triumphs, her mistakes, her fun, we can’t help but be reminded (and I was just by typing all those words) of another single lady on a smaller screen and a familiar part of the feminist zeitgeist: Girls’ Hannah Horvath. Only living in Santiago, Chile, all growed up. I’ve seen a couple of Gloria reviews mention Girls, but almost always in the context of the film’s sex scenes, the sort not traditionally shown, between bodies wider audiences (or producers) aren’t generally begging to see nude. But the character similarities don’t end there. Though they are generations and cultures apart, it continues with their flighty boyfriends, with their finding themselves alone in a dress on a beach without their belongings, with their ability to be irritating and down-to-earth simultaneously, and with their love of dancing.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not implying direct influence here. But if I must make the ubiquitous Girls connection in order for the female masses (ew?) to get out and experience this film and understand that getting older is going to be A-OK, that we don’t need to hurry up to find a partner and figure out who we are, that we don’t need Botox or lipo to get naked after 40, that we don’t need to fit into one of two categories, career woman or mom, and that we don’t need to fear being alone (and I don’t just mean single here, I mean physically alone)—well then the ends justify the means.

Here’s the thing, women over 50 should watch it, too. In the same way that I enjoy watching Girls because it gives me that thank-heavens-I’m-not-dealing-with-that-nonsense anymore feeling, the 50-pluses might get a thrill out of Gloria’s life not being their own anymore, or on the flip side it might completely resonate. Win, win! Because while it may seem like some big secret of growing old has been revealed to us in Gloria (or at least to me, a 31-year-old)—namely that we actually will still have those young brains in those old bodies—women of a similar age as Gloria might feel satisfaction seeing themselves or people they know represented more accurately on screen.

You could garner exactly none of this from Gloria, and it’d still be a really good time. But for me, it was refreshing to see a female-led film where the moral of the story isn’t the girlie best-friendships above all else, nor the incomparable bond with your mom, nor your unconditional devotion to your daughter, nor the knowing nod from your sister. It is about learning to love dancing on your own.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/h9PrVESAYeA?rel=0″]

Amanda Trokan is a writer turned Seed&Spark Director of Content. Watcher of many films, lover of some. Winner of 1993 West Road Elementary D.A.R.E. essay and two 2013 Oscar® pools; loser of hair thingies. Follow @trokan on Twitter for insight into her likes/dislikes/whatever.

Notes from the Telluride Film Festival: Reviews of ‘The Past’ and ‘Ida’

We learn in The Past that not is all as it seems, and maybe all that is left in the past isn’t really. Academy Award-winning director Asghar Farhadi (2011’s The Seperation) returns with his first movie outside of Iran. Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa) returns from Iran to finalize his divorce with Marie-Anne (Berenice Bejo, 2011’s The Artist) and finds himself awkwardly sleeping at the house of her new boyfriend, which also contains her children.

This is a guest post by Atima Omara-Alwala.

It’s in the Past, or Is It Really? A Review of The Past

We learn in The Past that not is all as it seems, and maybe all that is left in the past isn’t really. Academy Award-winning director Asghar Farhadi (2011’s The Seperation) returns with his first movie outside of Iran. Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa) returns from Iran to finalize his divorce with Marie-Anne (Berenice Bejo, 2011’s The Artist) and finds himself awkwardly sleeping at the house of her new boyfriend, which also contains her children.

Director Asghar Farhadi is Iranian, and in speaking about the film, addressed how he hopes–as someone from the East–that people from the East and the West can better understand one another through film. Certainly, The Past is, among many things, one of those movies that aims to dispel notions about his Iranian characters. First, the movie has a major female protagonist in Marie-Anne as the ex wife of Ahmad, in addition to her daughter Lucie, who is in a supporting role. Marie-Anne is a woman with a solid career as a pharmacist. Ahmad is an Iranian man, who adores children and is better with them than his soon-to-be ex-wife, and he enjoys cooking for his ex-wife and the children. The Western portrayal of Iranian men (or men from the Middle East) tends to show men as very patriarchal who treat women with disdain (eg, Not Without My Daughter). As if to ensure the viewer that Ahmad is not a one hit wonder, Marie-Anne also is in a serious relationship with a new Iranian man, Samir (Tamir Rahim) who is a single, devoted father to his son Fouad after his wife ends up in the hospital in a coma from a suicide attempt.

A web of secrets from the past threatens to destroy the lives of all the characters; how they grapple with it and deal with them (or if they do) is what makes this film riveting to watch for all viewers (as it has universal themes).

A must see by a talented director.

The Odd Couple: A Review of the Film Ida

Ida is a wonderfully-directed film by Polish director Paweł Pawlikowsk about two women learning about themselves and their family together. Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska) is a novice, an orphan brought up by nuns in a convent. Before she takes her vows, she is told of her only living relative, Wanda (Agata Kulesza), whom she seeks out to find the answers about her family.

Anna finds out she’s really not Catholic, but Jewish, according to her Aunt Wanda.

Wanda, a somber woman, wondering about what happened to her sister’s family (Anna’s parents) agrees to take a journey with her to find out what happened. It is a journey both women take that forces them to learn about each other, and it challenges each other’s beliefs.

You learn Wanda has fallen a bit in her career. Formerly a powerful attorney and judge in Communist Poland, you quickly see Wanda’s brilliance, intensity, and hardness. You see slices of what Wanda must have been when she demands answers on what happened to her sister from the family that now lives in her sister’s home. “You know I can destroy your life,” says Wanda. Anna is quiet and demure, a perfect product of her Catholic upbringing and at times clearly does not know what to make of her Aunt.

Putting a devout young sheltered Catholic woman with a wordly Polish Jewish woman is bound to create tension. When Anna quietly, but clearly, disapproves of her Aunt Wanda’s dancing, drinking, and flirting with men on one of their road trip stops, Wanda senses this and points out how Anna’s Jesus hung out with women like her (alluding to Mary Magdalene).

The saddest moment in the journey awaits them as they find out what really happened to their family. How they both deal with that tragedy and are impacted by their interactions with each other carries the last third of the film poignantly.

Shot in black and white, it resonates of a darker time in Poland. This is a must see because the story is touching and Paweł Pawlikowsk portrays the depths that are these women characters. Despite Anna being a novice on her way to being a nun and Wanda being a powerful career woman, they are not caricatures but real characters with feelings and desires who are figuring out their lives.

Atima Omara-Alwala is a political strategist and activist of 10 years who has served as staff on 8 federal and local political campaigns and other progressive causes. Atima’s work has had a particular focus on women’s political empowerment & leadership, reproductive justice, health care, communities of color and how gender and race is reflected in pop culture. Her writings on the topics have also been featured at Ms. Magazine, Women’s Enews, and RH Reality Check.