Foreign Film – Page 2

Doing The Extraordinary in ‘Two Days, One Night’

Women in films are even less likely to engage in this kind of dispirited struggle. Instead an actress usually plays the wife, mother, or girlfriend whose job it is to be “strong” and rub the hero’s back while he battles against his own obstacles. She talks reassuringly to him whenever he doubts himself, the exact same way Sandra’s husband does with her here.

In one of the first scenes of Two Days, One Night, the newest release from the Belgian writer-directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, we see the main character Sandra (played by a dressed-down Marion Cotillard) receive some bad news on the phone. She says out loud to herself afterward, “Don’t cry.”

Sandra, we later find out, has been on sick leave from her job for the past few months because of clinical depression. The phone call is from her friend at work, Juliette (Catherine Salée), who tells her that the rest of the laborers at their place of employment (which seems to be a small manufacturer of solar panels) have voted to accept a €1,000 bonus (about $1,200), which the foreman has offered in exchange for their agreement to lay Sandra off (Western Europe: a fairytale land where a boss asks his workers for permission to lay off their colleague–and offers them money to do so). The overwhelming majority of the workers (all but two of the 16 of them) have voted against her.

Juliette tells Sandra the foreman has misled the others into thinking if they didn’t agree to get rid of Sandra one of them might be laid off instead. So as the plant’s big boss is leaving the parking lot in his sports car to start his weekend, Juliette and Sandra plead with him to hold another vote, with a secret ballot, first thing on Monday morning. He just wants to get out of there, so he agrees.

Two Days, One Night — Sandra (Marion Cotillard) and her husband (Fabrizio Rongione)

For the rest of the film Sandra, with the support of her husband (Fabrizio Rongione), and to a lesser extent, Juliette, tries to convince the others (after finding their home addresses and tracking them down) to let her stay. Of course voting against Sandra was easy when they didn’t have to face her and hear her say that she doesn’t want to be jobless and swear that she’s ready to go back to work (even as we in the audience, who have seen how frail she still is, wonder if she’s telling the truth).

One of her coworkers (part of the handful of Black and brown immigrants also more likely to be let go) is unexpectedly emotional; Sandra looks confused as he weeps about voting against her on Friday and thanks her for the chance to redeem himself. Others, including a woman Sandra had thought was her friend but refuses to see her, are surprisingly cold–or outright hostile. They want that €1,000 and don’t care if getting it means she will lose her job. Some make excuses and tell her they’re not the ones who set Sandra’s continued employment against their bonuses. She replies, quicker and more astutely than we expect, that the choice isn’t of her making either.

2Days1NightCoworker — A coworker begs Sandra for forgiveness

Cotillard, her hair in a straggly ponytail, wears skimpy, summer tank tops, but is so slouched and tense for most of the film, her body is like a backwards “S.” She comes across as both convincingly desperate and working-class (not something all red-carpet actresses are capable of). Like Violette, Two Days, One Night isn’t afraid to show its protagonist at her worst. Sandra, like Violette, hates the thought that the concessions the others are making for her are motivated by pity. She constantly wants to give up, taking to her bed in the middle of the day, even as her husband gently pushes her saying, “Why not try?” and “Don’t give in. You have to fight.”

This film, like Violette, challenges the lie that most films tell, especially those released in time for awards season, that after a few minor setbacks a protagonist will, with uplifting music on the soundtrack, stand up straight and face adversity head-on with courage and maximum photogeneity. But the people who do extraordinary things often do them after a lot of bone-crushing rejection. They feel like miserable failures. They cry. They consider quitting all the time. We all like to think we face the trouble that comes our way like Wonder Woman, but when events take a turn for the worse we’re more like Dr. Smith on the old TV show Lost In Space, crying in an increasingly hysterical voice, “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.”

Sandra’s quest is not just an indictment of capitalism but also touches on the responsibility we feel for our fellow human beings–how deep (or not) our empathy runs for the people we talk to and work alongside every day. Seeing Sandra’s surprise at who votes for her and who votes against her makes us wonder how well we know our own coworkers. We see her smile after one small triumph and in her next encounter we see her literally knocked down. We count with her as she accumulates four then five votes and when she talks to a man who just wants his money see her wisely clam up about which coworkers are voting for her. The long, frustrating, seemingly impossible task in front of Sandra could stand in for a number of others: writing a book, staying in a marriage–or making a movie.

And after we, along with Sandra, have nearly given up hope for her getting her job back, we see her become unexpectedly resilient–and the solution to her problem become more complex. Her late transformation reminds me of the redemption of another depressed character in a French-language film, Delphine in Eric Rohmer’s great Summer. Just as we hear the wonder in Delphine’s voice in the last line of that film, we hear a newfound strength and certainty in Sandra’s voice as she talks on the phone to her husband at the end. The two days and one night of the title have changed her, maybe forever.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06BNjqSsGqo” iv_load_policy=”3″]

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Ren Jender is a queer writer-performer/producer putting a film together. Her writing, besides appearing every week on Bitch Flicks, has also been published in The Toast, RH Reality Check, xoJane and the Feminist Wire. You can follow her on Twitter @renjender

The Female Archetypes Through the Lens of Roberto Rossellini

The character development of Pina and Marina used by Rossellini shows the influence of the war on Italian life and femininity. The suffering women are the epitome of the country at war.

This is a guest post by Giselle Defares.

Italian neorealism. Who would have thought that a genre that existed for a short period of time–1944 to 1952 to be precise–could have such a significant influence in the world’s cinematic history? The quintessential works of the Italian neorealist directors such as Vittorio De Sica (Ladri di biciclette), Luchino Visconti (La Terra Trema, Ossessione) and Roberto Rossellini (Roma, città aperta) are now anchored in our cultural lexicon. The genre has influenced the work of famed directors such as Truffaut, Antonioni and Godard. After all, didn’t Jean-Luc Godard state “All roads lead to Rome, Open City”?

Roma, città aperta, the first part of Rossellini’s neorealistic trilogy, is often cited as the prime example of the neorealist genre. In ravaged Rome of 1945, recovering from Nazism and fascist oppression, Rossellini formed a team with Federico Fellini and Sergio Amidei to create two documentaries. Amidei and Fellini encouraged Rossellini to combine the scripts to create realistic fiction. The film was shot on location in Rome on a shoestring budget (mustered with many loans). Rossellini used parts of a 35 millimeter film and the scenes were silently shot–Renzo Rossellini would later post-synchronize the sound. Voilá, Roma, città aperta was born.

The neorealist movement arose as a reaction against the glamorous melodramas that had previously dominated the Italian film industry under the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini. The fascist Mussolini used cinema as a place where the Italian citizen could dream of the lush–unattainable–images and temporarily forget their own harsh reality a.k.a cinema of distraction.

The neorealist directors sought out to present a degree of unfettered realism that wasn’t presented on the Italian silver screen. The films addressed social problems such as the ravages of war, crime, unemployment, and poverty. The sense of immediacy throughout the film–scenes shot in locations where eight months before the city was occupied by the Nazis–had no correlation with any other Italian film produced in the 40s. Upon its release, Roma, città aperta, was received with mixed reactions in Italy. Luckily the rest of the world was transfixed by this form of new realism. The film won the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1946. Fellini, Rossellini, and Amidei were nominated for an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Roma, città aperta centers around the plight of the core members of the Italian resistance against the occupational Nazi government. We follow Giorgio Manfredi also known as Luigi Ferraris (Marcello Pagliero), a communist and leader in the resistance who’s wanted by the Nazis. His friend and underground Communist newspaper printer Francesco (Francesco Grandjacquet); his fiancée, the widow Pina (Anna Magnani); and the priest Don Pietro Pellegrini (Aldo Fabrizi). The trio will help Manfredi get a new identity. Pina’s son, the young Marcello, has been active in the resistance against the Nazis. In the tumultuous events that follow, Francesco is arrested but later manages to escape. While Manfredi gets betrayed by his lover, femme fatale pur sang, Marina (Maria Michi).

Most research on the film–see for example the work of David Forgacs, Peter Brunette, Tag Gallagher–is focused on the politics of filming, the catholic church, or other neo-realist features. Not much is written on the archetypical roles of the women in this film (bar the work of Marcia Landy. The character development of Pina and Marina used by Rossellini shows the influence of the war on Italian life and femininity. The suffering women are the epitome of the country at war.

Fascism encouraged the rise of the so called New Italian Women (Nuova Italiana). During Mussolini’s reign, Italian women struggled with the dilemma of the lure of modernity versus the rut of tradition. Though their freedom was curbed: no voting rights for women, no female participation in the labor market, and a ban on abortion. The role of the women herein was in essence purely to bring forth children. These contradictions were emphasized by the gap that existed between the traditional Italian society of the First World War and the division of modernity that fascism entailed. In 1933, Mussolini’s stated, “ Woman must obey… My idea of her role in the State is in opposition to all feminism. Naturally she shouldn’t be a slave, but if I conceded her to vote, I’d be laughed at. In our State, she must not count.” Right.

In Roma, città aperta we are introduced to two archetypes. First, the headstrong Pina, the rock who supports her husband, yet is allowed to be vulnerable. Then there’s Marina, the “weak” and venal woman who will succumb to all her desires. This dichotomy between Pina and Marina is the classic example of the Madonna-whore complex. Marina is presented as the complete opposite of Pina. Pina can be seen as the new Italian woman. Her whole look and attitude throughout the film is that of an ordinary, disheveled woman. She almost seems stripped of her “femininity.” This is a stark contrast with Marina, who works as a showgirl and enjoys her silk stockings, fur coats, and cigarettes – all the finer things in life. Marina seems like the new embodiment of the earlier femme fatales that reigned in the Fascist cinema–women who lived by no discernible laws and destroyed men who crossed their paths. Although, Rossellini’s version of the femme fatale is portrayed as a frail woman. Marina doesn’t fully embody the vivacious and sexual role the previous Italian femme fatales had. She’s doesn’t sashay her way through life, instead she’s considered weak and unable to deny herself any desires. This is also illustrated by Rossellini’s portrayal of her “liaison” with the Nazi Ingrid (and to underline the “moral depravity” during the war). It’s important to note that while Marina is depicted as the sexual deviant, it is Pina’s motherly and devout character who ultimately comes across as impulsive and irrational.

In arguably one of the most famous scenes, Pina runs after a prison truck while shouting “Franchesco!” as her husband is taken by the Nazis. It’s a quick montage of short takes and one very dramatic tracking shot that underlines the abruptness and finality of death – the scene is inspired on a real life event in 1943 where Maria Teresa Gullace participated in a protest and was shot in front of her husband and son.

Roma, città aperta is one the most conventional films of Rossellini, well, at least in terms of narrative and dramatic structure. Through cinematic codes like shot / reverse shot, mise-en-scene, framing, and continuity montage, directors can reveal gender relations. Critic Laura Mulvey refers to it as the male gaze and states that cinema ideally is meant for the male audience. She divides the term in two: active male and the passive female. The problem lies in the fact that the woman is just a lust object on the screen, but that the male viewer meanwhile still has an irrational fear of the woman.

In Roma, città aperta the gaze shifted in the sense that the role of Pina and Marina is dialectical. The strong, motherly and modest woman knows her weak moments. Throughout the film the gaze lingers on the tired face of Pina. Marina realizes what she did, who she betrays and struggles to looks at herself in the mirror. Through this narcissistic gaze, the viewer is also hit with this realization. Pina is portrayed as the caring mother, and Francesco had found the perfect woman to start a family with. Marina is the epitome of the whore; she’s only there for men (or women) to have sex with, but cannot be tied down or feel true love. This is shown in her relationship with Manfredi. Manfredi’s looks and glances at Marina are nothing more than lustful. His gaze holds contempt for the fact that Marina is so weak, she’s willing to sell herself in order to establish a luxury life. Marina is clearly a passive female, but Pina has a more active stance. Nevertheless, her activity was not accepted and she comes to her untimely end.

Throughout the film, Rossellini leaves room for your own interpretation and strengthens the feeling of uneasiness that the story evokes – see the ambiguous “open” ending. The strength of Roma, città aperta lies ultimately in the images of Rome, the “amateur” actors (see the wonderful Magnani and Fabrizi), and the film’s aesthetic. It all lifts the film to the next level. Rossellini’s film depicts the reality of war and the displacement of women out their stereotypical roles during moments of distress.

Roma, città aperta has brought us some of the most indelible images in world cinema.

Giselle enjoys googling random things, late night conversations, and can’t stray far from the impulse to write it all down. She writes on fashion, film, and pop culture here.

Putting the I in Family with ‘Force Majeure’

Quick! An avalanche is about to kill you and your family. Do you: A) Try to save your children, or B) Grab your phone and run away, leaving your loved-ones to perish? If you chose B, you may be the male lead of ‘Force Majeure,’ the sometimes-funny, sometimes-serious Swedish movie up for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2015 Golden Globe Awards.

Written by Katherine Murray.

Quick! An avalanche is about to kill you and your family. Do you:

A) Try to save your children, or

B) Grab your phone and run away, leaving your loved-ones to perish?

If you chose B, you may be the male lead of Force Majeure, the sometimes-funny, sometimes-serious Swedish movie up for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2015 Golden Globe Awards.

The story of Force Majeure – which is revealed in the trailers; I’m not giving anything away – is that a husband and wife, Tomas and Ebba, are enjoying a vacation with their two young children when what looks like an out-of-control avalanche comes barreling toward them. Believing they’re about to die, Ebba immediately tries to save the children, while Tomas abandons all three of them to save himself.

It turns out that the avalanche stops in time, so everyone’s all right, but the rest of the movie is about what it means – for Tomas and Ebba personally, and for their marriage – now that they know he’s a coward. From the moment the avalanche stops, they keep talking about it – and trying not to talk about it – as they try to decide whether it was a Big Deal, and whether it Means Something about the kind of person he is.

In real life, a “force majeure” is a clause in a contract that lets you out of your obligations in the event of a major catastrophe, such as a natural disaster. In Force Majeure, the question is whether Tomas – who generally has a good relationship with his family – can be forgiven for failing to be a good spouse and father, during extraordinary circumstances. What sounds like it could be a joke – man unexpectedly abandons family without a backward glance as soon as things get rough – becomes a very thoughtful and serious examination of what it means to be married to someone, what you have the right to expect from your spouse, and what the proper separation is between Self and Family.

As the film points out, women’s identities have traditionally been closely tied to their roles as wives and mothers, while men’s identities have been tied to their jobs and extra-familial achievements. It’s telling that, before the avalanche even arrives, Ebba (obliquely) accuses Tomas of focusing too much on work rather than his family. After the avalanche hits, the detail she zeroes in on is that he chose to save his phone – which he’s been using to check his work email – rather than helping her with the kids.

At the same time, the movie suggests that Ebba might be too wrapped up in her family. In one scene, she becomes disturbed and uncomfortable by the idea of polyamory, as explained to her by another tourist staying at the same resort. It isn’t just that she’s not poly herself – it’s that she can’t wrap her head around the idea that a polyamorous couple can lead separate lives while still being committed. When she’s separated from her family for an afternoon, she’s nearly catatonic without them, and bursts into tears when she sees them having fun without her.

By running away from the avalanche, Tomas separated himself from the we/us/ours that Ebba takes for granted as the centre of a meaningful relationship. There are lots of reasons why running away wasn’t the right thing to do, but the part that seems to bother her most is his selfishness.

For most of the film, Tomas and Ebba aren’t able to talk about what happened. It takes Ebba a long time to process what she’s feeling and, at first, she tries to pretend it’s OK. Tomas, on the other hand, at first tries to deny he was scared, and then denies he ran away. He retreats into a detached, intellectual position where he pretends to find it “interesting” that they have “different perspectives” on what happened, abandoning her a second time.

When they finally do talk about it, they drag in two of their friends, one of whom suggests that men from a certain generation were raised not to care about their children – something that starts a second argument about what it means to be a good father. Mats, the friend who’s been divorced already, defensively argues that he’s a good father because he provides financially for his children. His girlfriend points out that his children live with their mother, and suggests that he doesn’t put in enough face time to say he’s involved in their lives.

The disagreement spirals out in several different directions but, every direction it goes, it comes back to the idea that the roles we play in life, and the expectations we have of ourselves and each other, are coloured by gender.

Even though it’s not specifically discussed this way, there’s something gendered about the way Tomas initially refuses to admit that he was scared – about the way that he projects his feelings onto Ebba and tries to tell their friends that she was terrified while he stayed calm. There’s also something gendered about the way that Ebba can’t stop smiling when she’s angry – the way that she can’t stop talking about what happened, even when she hasn’t worked out what to say.

Force Majeure is about a world where men and women are supposed to be equal partners in marriage, but where we don’t yet know what that means. We’re watching an institution that used to mean one thing evolve to become something else. It’s exciting and confusing and the question, what does it mean to be a good partner or parent or woman or man, is one that gets more complicated as our notions of what’s possible expand.

Watching two people passive-aggressively argue about who did or didn’t run away when they were or weren’t about to die is a microcosm for the conflict at the heart of any union – what’s the separation between I and We?

No one knows. That’s what makes it riveting to watch.

Katherine Murray is a Toronto-based writer who yells about movies and TV on her blog.

Spirit Possession and Military Service: Talya Lavie Talks to Us About ‘Zero Motivation’

What were the biggest challenges in making a feature film? How do people see compulsory military service in Israel? Was that Russian girl really possessed by a ghost? Writer/director Talya Lavie answers our questions about her award-winning film.

Zero Motivation, which won Best Narrative Feature at the Tribeca Film Festival, is a dark slacker comedy set in the Israeli military. You can read our review of it here.

The first feature-length film from writer-director Talya Lavie, Zero Motivation was inspired by her own military service. In the Director’s Note found in the movie’s press kit, Lavie writes that “Israeli women may of course serve in more glamorous roles, like pilots or tank crew instructors. But I wanted to focus on us office girls, the unseen and mostly ignored majority whose contribution is lacking any social or symbolic value.”

While promoting the film’s release in New York, she took the time to follow up on that statement, and to answer a few of our questions.

Bitch Flicks: Most of our readers are from the US and Canada, where the concept of mandatory military service is a little bit foreign, so I’m wondering if you could expand on that statement and talk about how you see the role of female conscripts in the Israeli military.

Lavie: Israel is one of the only countries that has mandatory military service for women as well as men. It creates a paradox because, on the one hand, it’s a symbol of equality but, at the same time, the IDF… still demonstrates real gender discrimination. There are women in combat roles but, as I said, the majority of women are still doing secretarial jobs. I believe this may change only if the army becomes less central in Israeli society – hopefully one day.

BF: In many ways, this is a coming of age story, but one that takes place within a very specific setting. (How) do you think that serving in the military has influenced the way these characters define themselves and develop as individuals?

Lavie: In a way, the army for those characters is what college is for Americans. Everyone participates and accepts it as a fact. It is, though, challenging to define your individual identity while having to wear the same uniform as everyone else, and to [live under these] rules. I guess it influences each person in a different way, like every other thing in life.

BF: While the film is very funny, there are a few darker moments in the story. How did you go about managing the changes in tone in the film?

Lavie: The film is defined as a “dark comedy” but, while writing the script, I didn’t want to lock myself into a specific genre. I put a large [range] of emotions in it, and was interested in mixing different spirits. Ultimately, my greatest challenge was to maintain the specific subtle tone of the film; to balance the transitions between humor, sadness, nonsense and seriousness. I felt like an acrobat in a circus walking on a rope, trying not to fall off, and yet to keep the film’s free spirit.

BF: I think the sequence where Irena is “possessed” by the spirit of the dead girl works really well on a metaphorical level, but inquiring minds want to know – was she really possessed by a ghost?

Lavie: All of the characters in the film have a very detailed biography that is not told in the movie – none of them gives a personal monologue. But their background is hinted at in many ways. In Irena’s character, we tried to hint that she has a history of violence. And when she sees Zohar nearly raped, it brings a very strong reaction out of her. Is she really possessed? I leave it for each viewer to decide for himself.

BF: What were some of the biggest challenges you faced in making this film, and do you have any advice for aspiring filmmakers?

Lavie: The biggest challenge was raising the budget for the film. It took several years. That stage in the creation of a film can be very frustrating for any first time filmmaker. My advice for filmmakers at this point is, in addition to applying anywhere you can, use that waiting time for learning and preparing for shooting. Eventually, when I look back on the process, that waiting period was frustrating but also useful for rewriting and studying. I came to the set very prepared. And since we had a very short time for shooting, [being prepared] was significant.

Thank you to Talya Lavie for taking the time to speak with us. Zero Motivation is currently playing in New York, San Francisco, Toronto, and other select cities in North America.

Satan in a Frilly Dress

However, this form of social shaming does not seem to prevent some of his young disciples from subverting their supposed childlike innocence: when the town is suddenly riddled by mysterious and violent crimes, it is suggested that the children have something to do with it, their leader being Klara, a 13-year-old angel-faced blonde and the pastor’s eldest daughter.

This guest post by Gloria Endres de Oliveira appears as part of our theme week on The Terror of Little Girls.

What are little boys made of? / What are little boys made of?

Snips and snails / And puppy-dogs’ tails / That’s what little boys are made of.

What are little girls made of? / What are little girls made of?

Sugar and spice / And everything nice / That’s what little girls are made of.

(nursery rhyme dating from the early 19th century)

Ana Patricia Rojo as Veronica in Poison for the Fairies — Ana Patricia Rojo as Veronica in *Poison for the Fairies*

Creepy little girls in cinema and television have always been important to me; growing up as the pale, black-haired daughter of Brazilian immigrants in the suburb of an ethnically very homogenous German town instantly made me fall in love with sullen, gothic heroines such as Wednesday Addams, Lydia Deetz, and Nancy Downs (thanks to my older sister, I first saw and enjoyed The Craft at the appropriate age of 7). They looked like me, dressed like me, relentlessly pursued their own peculiar interests, and remained strong in the face of societal opposition.

As I approached my late teens, I ditched my gothy black frocks and Doc Martens and started to indulge my love for all things pink, frilly, and girly. However, this led to me experiencing an all new form of social discomfort – while before I was just looked at as plainly weird, my new stereotypically female exterior made people underestimate me in a painful way, doubting my intellectual capabilities and often even being surprised upon noticing that I, a girly girl, possessed so much as a sense of humor. Furthermore, I have experienced first hand how so-called femme-phobia can even pervade queer spaces, where femme-identified persons are often faced with exclusion. This personal background led me to be fascinated with an all new set of creepy little girls.

As Leigh Kolb notes at Bitch Flicks, ”(l)ittle girls are supposed to be the epitome of all we hold dear – innocent, sweet, submissive and gentle. The Victorian Cult of Girlhood … bleeds into the twenty-first century anti-feminist movements, and these qualities are still revered.”

Lewis Carroll described little girls thusly:

“Their innocent unconsciousness is very beautiful, and gives one a feeling of reverence, as at the presence of something sacred.”

Furthermore:

“Artists like Charles West Cope and John Everett Millais produced dozens of domestic genre paintings with titles like The First Music Lesson (1863) and My First Sermon (1862-3), which portray the child as a bastion of simplicity, innocence, and playfulness. Women were also praised for embodying these qualities, and together with children they were urged to inhabit a separate sphere: to withdraw from the workforce, embrace their status as dependents, and provide the male breadwinner with a refuge from the dog-eat-dog capitalist world outside the family.”

These historic ideals are explored in Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon; the director paints a haunting picture of the fictional rural German town Eichwald at the cusp of the outbreak of the First World War. The oppressive nature of this puritanical society is underscored by the local pastor, who, in his confirmation classes, instills a deep sense of fear in the children he teaches – and, if they sin in any way, makes them wear a white ribbon to remind them of the purity they should strive for.

At one point, Klara is even implied to have butchered her father’s beloved parakeet with a pair of scissors. Childhood animal cruelty is not only thought to be an early symptom of psychopathic tendencies, but also stands in direct opposition to 1914 (and modern!) society’s standards for young girls – a budding mothering nature, nurturing, empathic and caring, finding release in doll and homemaking play.

Could angelfaced Klara have done this? — Could angel-faced Klara have done this?

The notion of female children as the pinnacle of innocence is thus subverted – but what exactly lies behind the concept of the pure, the innocent little girl? Even today, a century after the fictional happenings in The White Ribbon, purity often seems to be a euphemism for virginity and sexual inexperience, celebrated with so-called purity balls and purity rings. Just as in Victorian times and in the rural, puritanical society depicted in Haneke’s film, nowadays, women who are sexually active (outside of marriage) are still considered impure and thus abject. This notion is so prevalent and ingrained, that even women who would deny being influenced by it often dream of a white wedding, with the father of the bride leading her to the altar to basically entrust her into the husband’s custody.

Jeanne Goupil & Catherine Wagener in Mais ne nous délivrez pas du mal — Jeanne Goupil and Catherine Wagener in *Mais ne nous délivrez pas du mal*

A similar church ceremony is, of course, first communion – where the traditional white wedding finds it ritualistic precursor, with pre-pubescent little girls decked out in white dresses, veils and wreaths. Anne and Lore, the two 14-year-old protagonists in Joël Séria’s Mais ne nous délivrez pas du mal, who meet at a catholic boarding school set in stiflingly bourgeois 1970s France, act out by playfully, then violently processing and at the same time powerfully overthrowing what society has taught them; in a pivotal scene, the two girls stage an elaborate, candle-lit and organ-accompanied mash-up of a wedding and a communion, where they pledge everlasting allegiance to … Satan. Interestingly, the film features a screne where a pet bird belonging to an older man is killed by a one of the girls – reminiscent of Klara in The White Ribbon and her disregard for patriarchal authority.

Two little girls entangled in increasingly sinister play and satanism are also the protagonists in Carlos Taboada’s swan song Veneno para las hadas (Poison for the Fairies).

Veronica, the school’s outcast, traumatised by the death of her parents, her loneliness and the ”ridiculously inappropriate bedtime stories” her nanny tells her, befriends the new student Flavia – a wealthy, sweetly happy girl from a seemingly intact family. Veronica, a master manipulator at the ripe old age of 10, convinces Flavia that she, Veronica, is a powerful witch, enabling her to blackmail Flavia into sharing her privileges (her dolls, her happy family, her family’s summer house, even her beloved puppy) with her to an uncomfortable extent.

Elsa María Gutiérrez & Ana Patricia Rojo as Veronica in Poison for the Fairies — Elsa María Gutiérrez and Ana Patricia Rojo as Veronica in *Poison for the Fairies*

Scared and intimidated by Veronica’s increasingly violent displays of her supposed magical power, including the death of Flavia’s piano teacher (which was, in reality, due to a longstanding illness, not witchcraft), Flavia despairs and, at the culmination of the film, resorts to literally burning the witch: Veronica dies in a fire, the film ending with her haunting cry: “¡Flavia ayúdame!” (“Flavia, help me!”).

Behind the societal construct of the innocent little girl not only lies the imperative virginhood, but also the requirement of a certain passivity and submissiveness. Girls are taught from an early age not to be too rambunctious, not to get themselves dirty during play – femininity is thought and taught to be pristine, docile, meek and often inferior. The fact that Klara, Anne, Lore, and Veronica cannot be described as so-called tomboys is emblematic for their characters’ subversive power: They cause their violent mayhem in the frilliest, most femine dresses, decked out in candy colors, ragcurled pigtails bouncing. Perhaps this is one of the key factors that make famous cinematic creepy girls such as Wednesday Addams, Rhoda Penmark, and the Grady twins so powerful and memorable – by society’s standards, their characters’ darkness and defiance seems to exist in direct contrast to their girly exterior.

Jitka Cerhová & Ivana Karbanová in Sedmikrásky — Jitka Cerhová and Ivana Karbanová in Sedmikrásky

They have this in common with the Marie and Marie, the heroines in Věra Chytilová‘s Sedmikrasky (Daisies) and Alice, the protagonist in Catherine Breillat‘s directing debut Une vraie jeune fille. Those girls, wearing plenty of mascara and mini dresses, cause a range of disturbance, ranging from public masturbation to con games, theft and cake fights.

Both of these films not only pass the Bechdel Test with flying colours, but are also exclusively and intimately told from the girls’ perspectives, rendering them very modern and relevant still (which perhaps also explains Daisies‘ current popularity among girls, with stills and gifs from the film very present on all kinds of online platforms).

Charlotte Alexandra in Une Vraie Jeune Fille — Charlotte Alexandra in *Une Vraie Jeune Fille*

Another similarity between those two films (and Seria’s Mais Ne Nous Delivrez Pas du Mal) is that all three of them were immediately banned upon their release in their countries of origin. All three films depict young girls who defy any Victorian Etiquette School-style rules, who actively and independently take charge of their sexuality without any hint of submissiveness. None of these films explicitly depicts violence (no blood is ever seen on screen). The Godfather, on the other hand, a film released at a similar time, featuring a litany of violence, fist fights, gun shootings and blood baths (including a lengthy scene where a man brutally ”chastises” his wife with a belt), was not banned, neither in its country of origin, nor in France, or former Czechoslovakia. Rather, it was celebrated unanimously, winning three Oscars and is to this day held up as a cinematic masterpiece.

Creep girl du jour: Mia Wasikowska in Stoker — Creep girl du jour: Mia Wasikowska in *Stoker*

To me, the decade-long banning of films depicting rebellious young women demonstrates their subversive power that can be traced to the present day; as Elizabeth Kiy concludes, ”a culture’s horror stories have always reflected what they finds terrifying (…) from the fear of liberated women in Dracula to the virgin/whore dichotomy of the slasher film, and probably always will.”

Personally, I still cling to every well-written creepy heroine appearing on my screen, such as, most recently, India in Chan-wook Park’s Stoker – hopefully dismantling harmful gender stereotypes one lace-collared dress at a time, making it a little less difficult and less lonely to be a young woman.

Gloria Endres de Oliveira is a Berlin- and London-based actor, filmmaker, photographer, and writer. Updates on and samples of her work can be found on her tumblr and she twitters at @gloriayloslobos

‘Kamikaze Girls’: When a Lolita Meets a Yanki

This guest post by Jasmine Sanchez appears as part of our theme week on Female Friendship.

There is a common belief that two types of girls exist: tomboys and girly-girls. This is often perpetuated by media. Look at any cartoon since the 1980s and onward. Another belief often perpetuated by the media is that women who fit one of these types aren’t likely to get along with the other. I’m not sure where this idea originated and I’m even less sure how it became so accepted. Either way, it’s just another fallacy that prevents women from being friends with women who don’t fit into their own idea of how women should act. However, one film proves how a friendship can form between two unlikely women.

Kamikaze Girls (originally Shimotsuma Monogatari in Japan) is a story of two teenage girls who each belong to a different Japanese subculture and end up becoming best friends. Momoko Ryugasaki is a Lolita living in a rural part of Japan called Shimotsuma. Despite what one might expect a girl who dresses like a cupcake to act, she is cold, manipulative and completely content with living in own fantasy world. She spends her days bored out of her mind living in her peaceful town, but occasionally makes trips to Tokyo in order to shop for clothing from her favorite brand, Baby The Stars Shine Bright. However, Momoko’s pretty dresses don’t come cheap, so in order to fuel her passion for Lolita fashion, she puts up an ad online selling her father’s old bootleg Versace clothing. This causes her to meet a yanki (Japanese delinquent), Ichigo Shirayuri, or “Ichiko” as she prefers to be called, who is interested in purchasing some knock-off clothing. Once she sells her the fake Versace, Momoko expects their interactions to end there; however, Ichiko decides to befriend her and rope her into her own little adventure.

While their connection doesn’t form immediately, especially in Momoko’s case, the two eventually are able to form a close bond. When they first meet they are both taken aback by one another’s exterior–Momoko is horrified to be dealing with a yanki and Ichiko thinks that Momoko is a little girl. Once she finds out they are the same age Ichiko admits to her folly, “I shouldn’t judge by appearances,” which Momoko counters with, “But appearances says everything.” This sets up their dynamic for the rest of the film as Ichiko is willing to look beyond, while Momoko prefers the superficial. After business is done, Momoko wants absolutely nothing to do with Ichiko as she doesn’t see friendship or any form of human connections of something of value. Not to mention her disgust with Ichiko’s clothing, short temper, and habit of spiting on the floor. This still doesn’t prevent Ichiko from coming over to Momoko’s house uninvited, or joining her for tea at her favorite café. Despite being a tough biker gal, it’s clear that Ichiko has a sense of loyalty and wants to befriend Momoko, because she feels indebted to her after getting great deal on the clothing sold to her. However, a flashback of Ichiko’s past before she was a yanki shows that she was bullied and had no one as a friend. This changed when she met her mentor and gang leader Akemi. Ichiko most likely sees Momoko in a similar predicament and wants to help her out by befriending her. Unfortunately, Momoko is not as receptive to Ichiko’s offers of friendship and inclusion of her biker gang.

*Spoiler Warning*

Although Momoko resists Ichiko’s attempt to convince her to join her on her search for a legendary embroider named Emma, she is literally dragged along anyway. Their “quest” pretty much consists of them walking aimlessly around the city and hijinks ensuing. When they are unable to find Emma, Momoko offers to embroider Ichiko’s coat, which she stays up all night to do. Despite being exhausted, Momoko admits to being filled with happiness when seeing Ichiko’s delight in her stitching, an emotion that surprises her as well.

Their bond with each other is deepened when they start to rely on each other for their emotional struggles. When Ichiko finds out the guy she liked is involved with someone else, more specifically her former gang leader, Akemi, she is understandably brokenhearted by this revelation and calls Momoko and asks her to meet her on a hill. When Ichiko repeats the words of advice Akemi had given her, “Women shouldn’t cry in public,” Momoko turns around and reminds her that they are alone. This allows her to break down and cry. This is Momoko’s way of comforting her, while allowing her to keep her pride. When Momoko is asked by her favorite brand to embroider a dress with her own design, she is intimidated by the prospect and at a loss at what to do. Momoko asks Ichiko to meet with her to talk about it, and although Ichiko is surprised by Momoko needing her, she states she will go anywhere for her. Her words of advice for Momoko are harsh but encouraging as she reminds her of the embroidery she did on her jacket and how it made her feel. Ichiko sees the talent that Momoko possess and wants to help her flourish. Although she is somewhat unsure of herself, after her talk with Ichiko, Momoko is able to find the inspiration to embroider the dress.

Toward the end of the film, Momoko’s friendship is in full force when she drives by motorbike in order to help Ichiko when she finds out she will be beaten by gang members. Everything she does from this point goes against Momoko’s mindset as a Lolita, however she realizes that Ichiko means more to her than being delicate. When Momoko reaches Ichiko and the gang members, she has already been beaten quite a bit. The sight of Ichiko’s blood causes Momoko to unleash her rage and she grabs a bat and starts swinging against as many yankis as she can. After she freaks them out with her sudden attack, she lies and claims to be the daughter of a legendary yanki. This convinces them to let them both go as they ride off on Ichiko’s bike together as they laugh about Momoko’s bluff.

The film relies on an odd-couple dynamic between the two leads, not just in appearance, but also in personality. Both characters are interesting in their own right. Momoko is a misanthropic dreamer, while Ichiko is delinquent with vulnerable side. Through their interactions with one another they are able to uproot a part of each other that they couldn’t see before. However they don’t completely change at the end of the film; Momoko still prefers her life of indulgence as a Lolita and although Ichiko has a brief stint modeling Lolita clothing, she’s still tough as nails and prefers to ride her bike through the countryside. Their choices are treated as positive ones by the film, since they’re both still young and as long as they have each other they will be okay.

Jasmine Sanchez is a university student working on a major in English Literature. She loves comic books, British television, anime/manga, and cult classic films. She one day hopes to travel to Japan. You can find her on Twitter at @takship.

Homegirls Make Some Noise: ‘Antônia’ and the Magic of Black Female Friendships

Classism, racism, sexism, and colorism are very real in the world of ‘Antônia.’ But the film shows us a fresh narrative of Black women succeeding despite living in a slum, despite poverty, despite violence and all the ills that pervade real life. For just a moment, I’m able to watch Black women who are free to be themselves. They don’t have to unpack external baggage based on a checklist of intersections involving their skin color, social status, or gender. That is a rare treat. It’s their tight friendship that sustains them. Music is friendship, and friendship is music.

Antonia One Sheet “Antônia Movie Poster” — *Antônia* Movie Poster

This guest post by Lisa Bolekaja appears as part of our theme week on Female Friendship.

Antônia is a Brazilian film from 2006 that I watch at least once a year. Its fictional female characters are ones that I consider my cinema family, ladies who I like to visit with for a spell and reminisce about rap music and female MCs. It’s an uncomplicated story, and perhaps even a little melodramatic. However it boasts one of cinema’s rare contemporary explorations of Black female friendship while navigating the hyper-masculine world of hip-hop. The simple slice-of-life storytelling using real-life female MCs resonates with authentic sisterhood.

Antônia chronicles the rise and fall (and rise again) of four young women from Sao Paulo who sing backup for a male rap group called “Power.” Scratching out a basic living in the Brasilandia favela are Preta, a single mom who recently left her cheating husband; Mayah, a songwriter into fashion as much as her lyrical prowess; Lena, a hardcore lyricist who juggles her music career with her insecure boyfriend; and Barbarah, a martial arts expert who lives with her closeted gay brother.

These four women, friends from childhood, named their group after their respective grandfathers who coincidentally all had the name “Antonio.” What makes them all so special to me is the fact that all four women have an exuberant agency and a nuanced security in their Blackness, which is refreshing to see onscreen. From their hair, clothing, skin color, to the way they walk and rap, there is a sense that they have never doubted that they were fly and worthy of respect. This confidence they display doesn’t come from the stereotypical and clichéd tropes of the sassy Black woman, or the Black chick with neck swiveling finger-pointing “attitude,” or the hyper-sexualized Black female dimepiece. Even the tiresome “strong” Black woman trope is absent in this film. These women are vulnerable, assertive, flawed, supportive of one another, and critical of one another. This confidence comes from their collective need to persevere in the face of undeniable hardships.

Walking above favela “Barbarah (Leilah Moreno), Lena (Cindy Mendes), Mayah (Quelynah), and Preta (Negra Li) — Walking above favela: Barbarah (Leilah Moreno), Lena (Cindy Mendes), Mayah (Quelynah), and Preta (Negra Li)

Although the film is only 90 minutes long–time for only light character sketches at best–the subtext I read is a world of complexity and pride beneath each woman. At one point, while waiting for a train after a late night performance, they sing a cappella about their love for the curl in their hair and being “Criollo” (Creole in the sense of being Black Brazillians who, like Black Americans and others outside of the African Diaspora, exist because of blendings of African, Native, and European blood). Mayah even raps this in one of her rhymes, which reinforces the notion of self, a self rooted in the pride and knowledge of Black cultural history. I’ve never really seen that in a contemporary film before.

While most American films featuring Black female friendships deal with misogyny, rape, drug use, damsels in distress, broken families, crime, poverty, and the often contrived horrors of being…gasp… single—flicks like Sparkle, Dreamgirls, Set it Off, Waiting to Exhale, The Color Purple, Daughters of the Dust, et al (notice that I had to reach way back for titles) — Antônia stands out as the one rare film where the Black women are the captains of their own ships, beholden to no one but themselves. Men support them, but don’t run them. They are sexual beings without being overwhelmingly sexual. (Mayah loves high heels and mini-skirts when she performs, but her attitude shows us it’s just for her pleasure and not for the male gaze.) Having a young child doesn’t deter Preta from performing; she brings her young daughter Emília to rehearsals where the women help care for her there and also outside of performing. Men don’t save them physically; they can handle male bullies with one kick from Barbarah’s Capoiera skills. Most importantly, they don’t wait for someone to discover them. Early on Mayah convinces the male rap group Power that the group Antônia has a hot song that they should consider opening their next show with. The guys agree and back them up. The women even tell the rap fans directly that they are feminist because they spit it in their lyrics to predominately male audiences. The real beauty is that their feminism is centered in a deeply Black female narrative vein. Alice Walker calls this being “womanist.” And the audience will deal.

Antônia surpasses the well-known Bechdel test and what I call the People of Color Agency Test: 1.) More than one Black person or PoC, 2.) Who speak to each other, 3.) About anything other than saving/serving White characters. That is the greatest joy I get from this film–watching beautiful, talented, and engaging Black women live their lives and cultivate their friendship without the heavy burden of structural racism brow-beating them All-The-Damn-Time.

The favela in the film is evidence of historical shenanigans. The scene of the women singing “Killing Me Softly” at a private and very White birthday party (because it’s less threatening musically) speaks volumes visually, especially when we know the group’s core audience is very Black and very rooted in the public streets. Classism, racism, sexism, and colorism are very real in the world of Antônia. But the film shows us a fresh narrative of Black women succeeding despite living in a slum, despite poverty, despite violence and all the ills that pervade real life. For just a moment, I’m able to watch Black women who are free to be themselves. They don’t have to unpack external baggage based on a checklist of intersections involving their skin color, social status, or gender. That is a rare treat. It’s their tight friendship that sustains them. Music is friendship, and friendship is music.

When an up-and-coming promoter and new manager of the group tries to shape Preta’s image into a solo career, one pleasing to a cross-over audience, Preta lets it be known that toning down her Blackness is not what she’s about. Singing mainstream pop hits is not her goal. Rap is. Without her sister-friends and their powerful energy, performing means nothing.

Mom and Daughter “Emília (Nathalye Cris) and Preta (Negra Li)" — Mom and daughter: Emília (Nathalye Cris) and Preta (Negra Li)

The only negative criticism I have of the film is that I wish the music, the literal sounds backing the lyrics of the female MCs, was just as good as the tracks the men had. Scenes in a local hip-hop club bristle with a restless kinetic energy when male performers inhabit the stage, but for some reason, the backing track for the ladies’ signature song is softened to a listless and defanged pop sound. This music doesn’t match the fierce content of the lyrics. The writer/director Tata Amaral ran an open casting call for local female rap talent, and the casting of real-life MCs makes a huge impact on the performances. The actors, Negra Li (Preta), Cindy Mendes (Lena), Leilah Moreno (Barbarah), and Quelynah (Mayah) hustled for this dream in their real lives. They know how to spit fire on a mic. They wrote their own verses performed in the film and those verses deserved beats that slayed.

Ultimately it was friendship that brought Antônia together as children. Nurturing that friendship is the only thing that stabilizes their chaotic lives while hustling for the showbiz dream. The simple narrative and the real-life raw talent of the women playing Preta, Mayah, Lena, and Barbarah makes Antônia a rich film that broadens the role of Black female friendships in cinema. It’s the friendship that makes me watch this film so often. And as corny as it sounds, I also get a happy ending. Perhaps if there were more films showing Black female friendships being nuanced, vulnerable, and just plain regular (no Super-Duper Negroes, no Magical Saviors, no There-Can-Only-Be-Exceptional-Black-Folks), I probably wouldn’t have to watch it so much. Antônia will always be in my regular film viewing rotation. I wish I had friends like these young women. The Sistren are here. Don’t sleep on ‘em.

Lisa Bolekaja co-hosts a screenwriting podcast called “Hilliard Guess’ Screenwriters Rant Room” and her work has appeared in “Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History” (Crossed Genres Publishing), “The WisCon Chronicles: Volume 8” (Aqueduct Press), and in the upcoming Upper Rubber Boot Books anthology, “How to Live on Other Planets: A Handbook for Aspiring Aliens.” She can be found on Twitter @LisaBolekaja

Making Sure Female Friendship Films Aren’t Forgotten: ‘Take Care of My Cat’

The film is about the evolving friendships of five young South Korean women as they step away from their technical high school into a less certain world. Their degrees of closeness shift as they consider their futures in the face of particular restrictions in work and life opportunities due to gender and class discrimination.

This guest post by Adam Hartzell appears as part of our theme week on Female Friendship.

Before I knew about the Bechdel Test, I knew about Take Care of My Cat, the 2001 debut film by South Korean director Jeong Jae-eun that is a required text for those interested in New Korean Cinema.[i] Among the many admirable and compelling aspects of the film, I found it most compelling that it had almost nothing to do with boys.[ii] As film scholar Chi-Yun Shin put it, “These women are defined not by men but by themselves and with each other.”

Tae-hee, played by the incredible Bae Doo-na of The Host and Cloud Atlas, continues to work at her family’s sauna and is the hub of the friendship network. She does her best to keep everyone together. Hye-joo (Lee Yo-won) is the social climber, but she is not played for cliché. Her character–at risk of caricature–is provided more depth than is usual for someone of her type. Hye-joo’s closest friend in high school was Ji-young (Ok Ji-young). But Ji-young’s economic situation, living alone with her frail grandparents in a much poorer part of Incheon, results in limited employment options. She doesn’t have the money to keep up with Hye-joo’s status-seeking desires. She wants to go to art school, but her family lacks the funds to enable this pursuit. Then there are the Chinese-Korean identical twins, Bi-ryu and Ohn-jo (played respectively by the Lee sisters, Eun-shil and Eun-ju). Their characters are less developed than the others, but their presence serves as acknowledgement of South Korea’s own specific multicultural make-up, something rarely acknowledged in the film industry at this time. Another character of interest here is the poet with cerebral palsy [iii] who dictates his poetry to Tae-hee. All these characters are, in their own ways, outsiders in relation to the growing South Korean economy only recently recovering from the IMF crisis.

Along with these characters, there is the cat that is passed between them. A stray that was found by Ji-young, it is given as a present to Hye-joo. When she returns this gift, it signifies rejection of their high school friendship that may no longer hold in their adult lives. The cat finds its way into the hands of all the women and represents an attempt to communicate what is unspoken between them. Jeong has said regarding her intent with the cat, “I had hoped for the girls to be like cats – flexible, independent, complex, to have the tendency to leave if they are not happy with their owner.”

In addition, mobile phones play a vibrant part in the communication, miscommunication, and refusal to communicate between the young women. Jeong displays the text on screen alongside the characters in an early creative effort to represent texting on film, of which South Korean cinema was an early pioneer. Finally, the gorgeous soundtrack works off the bleeps and tones of cellphones in its dreamy underscoring of this liminal period in the lives of these young women.

With the exception of the twins, each woman confronts discrimination directly. Ji-young does not have family or other connections necessary for the referrals required for certain jobs. Expectations are made by a male co-worker that Hye-joo should have laser vision corrective surgery. Tae-hee must deal with her father’s continued preference to her younger brother, leading to a confrontation with her father in a restaurant that includes a Korean literary reference. [iv] Explaining how Ji-young and Tae-hee fully resolve these forms of structural discrimination would result in my having to reveal plot points that I don’t want to reveal here. Let me just say that Tae-hee finds a connection with the temporary migrants in South Korea, Filipinos and Burmese, adding yet another layer to the feelings of isolation and exclusion these young women feel in the country of their birth.

Director Jeong Jae-eun has given us a wonderful exploration of female friendship through young women, whose position in their society is not stable. Allegiances shift as class rears a greater presence in their adult lives. As all great direction and scripts do, Jeong mostly shows rather than tells how these women connect and how they fail to connect. Early on in the historical prevalence of mobile technologies, Jeong demonstrates the myth in the promotional hype that such tools will keep us closer. She shows how they also keep us apart in how the tools are used and how class barriers limit access to such tools. Although it didn’t do spectacularly at the box office, Take Care of My Cat so touched its intended audience that it inspired an uprising of support to bring it back to theatres after being pulled sooner than fans wanted.

When New Korean Cinema emerged on the international film scene, part of what made it unique as a national film movement was the significant presence of not one, but three women directors. Along with Jeong, there was Lim Soon-rye and Byun Young-joo. Lim’s first two films were, interestingly, about male friendship (Three Friends and Waikiki Brothers). Lim would go on to direct a 2008 film partially about female friendship, a film based on a real-life South Korean women’s Olympic team handball squad called Forever the Moment. I think I can go on record and say it’s the greatest team handball film ever made. [v] Sports films in South Korea do not tend to do well, so it is a tremendous achievement that Lim garnered box office success for that film. Byun is most famous for her trilogy of documentaries on “Comfort Women,” which involve her friendship with women survivors and their own friendships with each other. Although Ardor and Flying Boys are less appreciated works, I am actually a fan of those feature films by Byun. Her most recent film, Helpless, actually garnered a best director from the industry. Back to Jeong–she moved on from Take Care of My Cat to a film partially about male friendship (The Aggressives). That film did not perform well at the box office and we had to wait seven years before Jeong took the director helm again, this time with critically well-received documentaries about architecture.

The reason I mention this women triumvirate of New Korean Cinema, besides pointing out how they all have directed films focusing on female friendship, is that in spite of their solid work and that of the women directors who joined them later, such as Park Chan-ok, Bang Eun-jin, and Gina Kim, I find myself discouraged that Jeong and other quality films by women directors, such as Kim’s excellent Invisible Light from 2003, often don’t make it on lists of significant films of the New Korean Cinema movement. Such lists are often dominated by the opposite of friendship, the male violence of films like Old Boy and I Saw The Devil.

Case in point: recently Indiewire, which on all other levels is a strong advocate of women’s films and focuses considerable coverage to pointing out gender discrimination in the U.S. film industry, posted a “primer” this summer on what they mislabeled as the “Korean New Wave.” (See the first endnote.) In that primer they completely dismiss the impact of women directors in South Korea. In their parenthetical excuse, they say they were only looking at films with “a measure of international distribution.” This is disingenuous since Take Care of My Cat received considerable international distribution for the time and Hong Sangsoo’s 2013 film Nobody’s Daughter Haewon, which made their list, has received almost next to nothing. [vi]

This erasure of women directors partly happens because we privilege the stories told by male directors, particularly those that are violent or action-oriented as Indiewire’s list of “essential” films demonstrates. Films about women’s lives where relationships are given precedence don’t fall into the male fight club preferences of many casual references to the South Korean film industry. Take Care of My Cat is a canonical text of New Korean Cinema. To leave it off your list is like leaving off Bong Joon-ho’s 2003 masterpiece Memories of Murder. Films about female friendship, the hard work of caring for others while negotiating room for independence, is just as much art, is just as engaging as, if not more than, watching a bunch of guys beat the crap out of each other. Ignoring films by the women of New Korean Cinema is part of a longer tradition of dismissing the women’s labor that makes art and entertainment possible. Take Care of My Cat’s erasure reminds us that we need to take care of our films and make sure that the exceptional works by these women aren’t forgotten or underappreciated. Such systematic forgetting makes it harder for the South Korean women working in the industry now and in the future to bring us their stories.

[i] Some writers have confused the “New Korean Cinema” and “Korean New Wave” film movements. For an example of this confusion, see Indiewire’s “10 Essential Films of the Korean New Wave” (June 26, 2014, credited to ‘The Playlist Staff’) where none of the films listed are part of the Korean New Wave but are actually part of New Korean Cinema. In the scholarly literature “Korean New Wave” denotes certain films made in the 1980s to the mid-90s that first started to address the cultural suppression and censorship at that time in South Korea’s history and were closely connected to the democracy movement. “New Korean Cinema” began in the late 1990s when censorship laws loosened and higher production quality became available. Then another confusing moniker entered the picture, “Hallyu,” which refers to the global pop culture phenomenon of South Korea films, television dramas, and pop music. The launching of the film segment of “Hallyu” began with Shiri (1999) by Kang Je-gyu. Mistakes in naming the wrong movement are primarily due to the names not being distinct enough. The fact that they both have “New” in them doesn’t help. Add to this that Hallyu means “wave” and you can see why Indiewire and others might mix up the movements and their origins. There are several books one can read to clarify this confusion, see for example Chi-Yun Shin and Julian Stringer’s New Korean Cinema (University of Edinburgh Press, 2005), Darcy Paquet’s New Korean Cinema: Breaking the Wave (Wallflower Press, 2010) and Directory of World Cinema: South Korea (ed. Colette Balmain, Intellect Ltd., 2013).

[ii] There is a young man who conveys romantic interest toward one of our characters, Hye-joo. Hye-joo brushes him off. But her romantic refusal is not “punished” or seen as her core flaw. Her friends are more upset with her general rudeness to him rather than any gender expectation that she should find the right man quickly or else she’ll regret it.

[iii] This character is played by an actor of similar embodiment, which is still rare casting for any national film industry.

[iv] The literary reference is to a novella by Cho Se-hui, the title of which goes by a few translation variations but I will use this one – A Little Ball Launched by a Dwarf. It’s a bit of a plot spoiler to mention the actual dialogue so I won’t here.

[v] If anyone knows of another team handball film, I seriously would love to know since sports films are one of my other film interests.

[vi] I am assuming by “international distribution” the authors mean what most folks intend by that phrase, distribution outside of film festivals.

Adam Hartzell has been a contributing writer to Koreanfilm.org since 2000. He has written for various websites (Fandor, sf360, VCinemaShow), the quarterly Kyoto Journal, and has a chapter in The Cinema of Japan and Korea (Wallflower Press) along with contributions in Directory of World Cinema: South Korea (Intellect Ltd). He writes often about the films of Hong Sangsoo such as for a retrospective of his work held in San Francisco and a paper delivered at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference in Seattle in 2014.

‘Martyrs’: Female Friendships Can Be Bloody Complex

Often in feminist criticism female friendships are discussed as a great barometer for the authenticity of the female characters. Strong bonds and healthy interactions serve the dual purpose of highlighting positive female roles and for showing the many dimensions of women as whole persons. I propose that in order to continue the push to show women as well-developed characters we also need representations of flawed female friendships.

This guest post by Deirdre Crimmins appears as part of our theme week on Female Friendship.

Examining the female friendship featured prominently in 2008’s French horror film Martyrs can bring about different conclusions depending on the perspective of the inquest. On one hand, the relationship is the heart of the film and was the force that pulled two young girls through their childhoods at an orphanage. On the other hand, each woman clearly has a different sense of what the basis of their bond is and their friendship is what ultimately leads to their demise. Rather than acting as opposing appreciations of the female friendship in the film, the varied consequences of this friendship function as a testament to the varied consequences of real world friendships.

Martyrs is one of the new wave of French horror films referred to as New French Extremity. These films often feature women as the central characters – Inside and High Tension are two notable examples – though they are ultimately united by their extreme violence. Martyrs is no exception and is quite brutal in its unflinching assaults and deaths.

The story begins briefly in the aforementioned orphanage. Young Anna and Lucie are bunkmates who are both spooked by the dark. Though flashback we see a small glimpse of what horrors Lucie had to endure before the orphanage. Given her state of arrival, it makes sense that she is completely aloof, and that Anna codependently tries to bond with her.

The bulk of the film takes place in present day. Without giving too much away, it is safe to say that Lucie is still haunted by her early life and has not given up her quest to find the couple that tortured her as a small child. She does all that she can to hunt these monsters down, and is unable to function due to this burden of craving vengeance. Anna has been by her side all this time, and sees herself as Lucie’s caretaker. Anna cleans up Lucie’s messes (which can be impressively bloody) and tries to get Lucie to let go of her demons.

When we catch up with the pair, Lucie has just located what she believes is the house of her captors. Given her unstable nature along with the horrors that she believes these people have done to her, the massacre that follows is not surprising. This does not make the assaults any easier to watch, but to see what pain Lucie is in is helps the audience have a bit of compassion for her. With Lucie’s job done, she awaits her cathartic release.

This relief does not come. Anna’s arrival to the house serves as a cool-headed contrast to Lucie’s paranoia. Lucie is self-mutilating, hallucinates, and refutes all of Anna’s attempts to calm her.

Here is where we get to clearly see the dynamics of Lucie and Anna’s friendship. Lucie is not well. She needs someone to watch after her, but is such a danger to herself and others that the task of keeping her intact mentally and physically is impossible. Anna tries as hard as she can to keep Lucie moving towards healing but falls into the Florence Nightingale Effect: Anna is in love with Lucie. Lucie can barely see past the end of her own nose she is so consumed with rage, and Anna cannot see past her romantic feelings for Lucie.

It is this lack of symmetry in their relationship that causes so many issues. Anna must know on some level that she is not trained to help Lucie get better. She is not a nurse or a psychologist, and given Lucie’s far-along psychosis a warm bedside manner is not going to have a significant impact. This nurturing is squarely attributed to Anna’s attraction to Lucie and not to a motherly nature or platonic love. As Anna is trying to comfort Lucie after a fit, Anna takes the opportunity to try to kiss her. A kiss would not benefit Lucie at this moment and is a selfish move by Anna. It exposes her denial of Lucie’s demented state.

Lucie conversely sees Anna as an assistant. She calls her to drive to and from her massacres. Lucie has Anna clean up blood and pushes her to affirm her paranoid notions even when Anna resists placating her.

This is not to say that their relationship is completely negative. Each woman gets a bit of something that they need from the other. More importantly, however, is the fact that they are the only constant family that the other has ever known. From the orphanage to today neither has had another friend or family. The shared history has made then dependent on one another and they would both be completely alone without each other.

Women have complex relationships that develop and change over time. At the very center of Martyrs we have a sordid and multifaceted female friendship that is equally functional and dysfunctional. The filmmakers have gone out of their way to craft a representation of a friendship that cannot be quickly summarized. While these women are both horribly flawed, their corresponding flawed relationship reflects the complexity that women everywhere experience with their own friends. Though I do hope your own friendships have a lower body count.

Deirdre Crimmins is a staff writer for AllThingsHorror.com and wrote her Master’s thesis on George Romeo. She lives in Boston with her husband and two black cats.

Pussy Power and Control in ‘Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer’

And it sinks in. We can, half a world away, celebrate Pussy Riot’s name. We can listen to their music and cheer them on. What our challenge as feminists needs to be is to take their cause as seriously as those Carriers of the Cross take it. We must hold on so tightly to our convictions–at home and abroad–that the utter fear and terror of female power that those enmeshed in the patriarchy are emboldened by is neutralized.

Written by Leigh Kolb.

Pussy Riot–the Russian feminist anti-authoritative protest punk band–staged a protest at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour two years ago. Their subsequent arrest, trial, and incarceration has been broadcast to a world both condemning and sympathetic of their cause.

Because of this, we’re hearing the word “pussy” thrown around on the news and in the classroom like never before. Teaching film and journalism, I think I said it in class a half dozen times in the last 24 hours. NPR’s calm deliverance of the word is almost soothing.

It’s hard to not delight in so much “pussy”—the word, as they use it, is threatening, terrifying, and forceful. It’s also a word that is used to belittle women or shame men. There’s power in the word, but there’s also silliness in the reception. The word itself is analogous to women themselves and how we inhabit this world—we often aren’t taken seriously, but us having power (especially sexual power) is terrifying to patriarchal forces. Pussy Riot has shown us this in a loud, brightly colored way.

The documentary Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer–now available on DVD—traces the path of Pussy Riot’s inception and worldwide explosion. The dozen or so women who gathered to form the punk collective in 2011 were galvanized by pro-feminist, anti-capitalist, pro-gay rights, anti-authoritarian, anti-Putin, anti-church/state ideologies. Their guerrilla-style performances with their signature brightly-colored balaclavas became known in feminist circles, but their February 21, 2012 performance was what made them a household name.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acMN8xUWqUQ”]

The documentary shows the group preparing for a concert/protest at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Moscow’s Orthodox church. It feels voyeuristic (in a good way) to watch this guerrilla punk group practice just like any other band.

As the film’s exposition builds, the group plans to storm the cathedral (which they say is the ultimate symbol of the relationship between the church and state), go up to the altar (where they point out women are now allowed, and they believe they should be), and perform “Punk Prayer.” The lyrics to the anthem include the lines,

“Virgin Mary, Mother of God, banish Putin, banish Putin,/ Virgin Mary, Mother of God, banish him, we pray thee!…/ Freedom’s phantom’s gone to heaven,/ Gay Pride’s chained and in detention… /Don’t upset His Saintship, ladies,/ Stick to making love and babies./ Crap, crap, this godliness crap!/ Crap, crap, this holiness crap!/ Virgin Mary, Mother of God./ Be a feminist, we pray thee…”

However, they are only able to perform for less than a minute before being dragged away by security officials and grabbed at by angry cathedral visitors (there was not a service going on at the time). Three of the members were arrested—Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (Nadia), Maria Alyokhina (Masha/Maria), and Yekaterina Samutsevich (Katia)–and Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer delves into their lives and the court case that awaited them.

Pussy Riot performs briefly at the cathedral

The film–directed by Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin—does an excellent job of letting us into the women’s lives. Their testimonies, their words to the press, and their families’ words, along with the footage of their performances, illuminate their entire story. While it’s clear that the filmmakers are pro-Pussy Riot, their allegiance isn’t distracting. For the first part of the film, as they cut between images of church, state, and protest, Pussy Riot’s performances seem like performance art, not acts of all-out revolution. We viewers think to ourselves as they get dragged off and arrested at the cathedral, “Really?”

And that’s the point. Ms. Magazine says,

“Their actual ‘offending’ performance was a quick and amateurish mess. It was a poorly organized and naïve display by the young women, making the punishments placed upon them—two years in intensive labor camps—appear even harsher by comparison. Out of this, the directors are able to show the growing maturity of the women’s court statements as their ‘show trial’ cage inevitably provides them an international platform on which to express their views.”

When the women are shown speaking (whether in detention or in court), they sometimes smirk and smile and certainly use the platform as activists. At one point, they say to each other that the press will use these photos of them smiling to show that they’re happy, and they say that they are actually laughing at the press. We know that their punishment hasn’t started in earnest yet, and so do they.

I found myself wanting, at times, to judge them for those smiles and testimonies that didn’t defend them sufficiently against the charges (“hooliganism motivated by religious hatred”). I realized, in my judgment, that I am part of the problem. Would I have responded that way to a documentary about young male activists? The rarity of seeing women fight and be punished on a national stage feels too rare. We—around the world—notoriously dismiss young women and find them silly. Our response to their name is indicative of that reality.

From left: Katia, Masha, and Nadia await their sentencing in a confined box in the courtroom.

We find them silly, or we find them terrifying. Rarely do we give them power.

The chilling reality of Pussy Riot’s case sets in when the filmmakers follow the anti-Pussy Riot protesters, Orthodox worshipers, and men who belong to “The Carriers of the Cross.” Women holding images of Madonna and child are disgusted with Pussy Riot, and the men say,

“Those girls really offended me… in the 16th century, they would’ve hanged them, they would’ve burned them.”

“The main one, she is a demon with a brain. She’s a strong demon. She is stubborn, you can tell by her lips, her mouth.”

“There have always been witches who won’t repent.”

And it sinks in. We can, half a world away, celebrate Pussy Riot’s name. We can listen to their music and cheer them on. What our challenge as feminists needs to be is to take their cause as seriously as those Carriers of the Cross take it. We must hold on so tightly to our convictions—at home and abroad—that the utter terror of female power that emboldens those enmeshed in the patriarchy is neutralized.

The disgust for female power is palpable in these scenes, and it is familiar. While America doesn’t have the same history as Russia, that vitriol feels familiar.

In the St. Petersburg Times, mere days before the arrest at the cathedral, a lengthy feature was published about Pussy Riot:

“The group cites American punk rock band Bikini Kill and its Riot Grrrl movement as an inspiration, but says there are plenty of differences between them and Bikini Kill. ‘What we have in common is impudence, politically loaded lyrics, the importance of feminist discourse, non-standard female image,’ Pussy Riot said. ‘The difference is that Bikini Kill performed at specific music venues, while we hold unsanctioned concerts. On the whole, Riot Grrrl was closely linked to Western cultural institutions, whose equivalents don’t exist in Russia.'”

We can watch this documentary and the news reels of Bolshevik Revolution and the footage of the original Cathedral of Christ the Saviour being demolished under Stalin. We don’t have the same history. But we have the same enemies.

Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer is an excellent documentary that reminds us of the threat women pose to the patriarchy–literally and figuratively. And when the women might seem young and naïve at the beginning of the film, we watch them mature, and we realize how serious both their punishment and the society that accepts such a punishment are. We hear Pussy Riot’s performance at the end of the film (footage from an earlier performance) as brilliant and powerful. And we realize, deeply, that we live in a world that needs Pussy Riot.

Kathleen Hanna said, “Anything is possible, if anything, this band has reminded us of that.”

Katia was granted a suspended sentence during the filming of the documentary, but Nadia and Masha went on to serve almost two years in labor camps. They were released in December 2013, which many saw as a false show of amnesty before the winter Olympics began in Russia.

And they haven’t stopped fighting or being fought against, as footage of them being beaten and detained in Sochi was just released this morning.

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

An Authentic Portrayal of a Transgender Sex Worker in ‘Wild Side’

Like much of Lifshitz’ previous work, ‘Wild Side’ explores sexuality and emotional intimacy. Thankfully, Stéphanie’s gender identity or Mikhail and Djamel’s bisexuality are not the sole focus, but rather appropriately important facets of their characters.

Written by Andé Morgan.

Some topics to avoid at a holiday dinner (aside from the fact that Columbus was an awful, awful man or that Jesus probably wasn’t born on December 25): politics, religion, and, if several generations of feminists are sitting around your table, sex work. I can’t bridge that chasm here, but I can tell you that I support the recognition of the human rights of both sex workers and transgender people (big of me, I know). Consequently, I appreciate stories that portray sex workers and transgender people as real people.

Unfortunately, I wince reflexively whenever I hear about a transgender character in a new movie or TV show. The notable exception of Laverne Cox in Orange is the New Black not withstanding, transfolk on screen are usually one-dimensional, and typically function to fill in a story or to be a catalyst for another (cis)character’s development. We’re familiar with the transgender character as a caricature: the “tranny” who is deceptive, immoral, dirty, ugly, and undesirable. These characters don’t develop. They’re either cheap punchlines, or they provide an opportunity for the main (cis)character to develop tolerance or sensitivity. Continue reading “An Authentic Portrayal of a Transgender Sex Worker in ‘Wild Side’”

The Film Version of ‘Blue is the Warmest Color’ Left Me Cold

It’s fantastic that there is a “Blue is the Warmest Color” comic book French film adaptation that is receiving such praise. Not only that, but the graphic novel was written and drawn by a woman, Julie Maroh. However, because I really admire the graphic novel source material (…even though it is a bit overwrought…I mean, hey, what love story isn’t?), I feel compelled to critique the film for the myriad changes that were actively made from comic to screenplay, which remove much of the drama and complexity from the storyline.

'Blue is the Warmest Color' comic vs film — *Blue is the Warmest Color:* comic vs. film.

Spoiler Alert

Though Bitch Flicks had a recent guest post by Ren Jender on the French lesbian film Blue is the Warmest Color called “The Sex Scenes are Shit, The Director’s an Asshole, but You Should Still See ‘Blue is the Warmest Color,'” I couldn’t help but weigh in on this graphic novel-turned-movie. Jender made a lot of really great points, namely that despite the director’s obvious prurience when it comes to lesbian sexuality, it’s still so important that we’re seeing a critically acclaimed three-hour film depicting the love affair between two women. I also think it’s fantastic that a comic book adaptation is receiving such praise. Not only that, but the graphic novel was written and drawn by a woman, Julie Maroh. However, because I really admire the graphic novel source material (…even though it is a bit overwrought…I mean, hey, what love story isn’t?), I feel compelled to critique the film for the myriad changes that were actively made from comic to screenplay, which remove much of the drama and complexity from the storyline.

Because they’re everyone’s pet topic, let’s go ahead and start with the sex scenes. Few will argue that the film’s sex scenes weren’t overly long and graphic. There were something like three repetitive sex scenes where nothing is happening to further the plotline or our understanding of the characters’ relationships, which makes the additional scenes seem gratuitous.

Check out this video of lesbians watching Blue is the Warmest Color sex scenes and evaluating them:

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIjJ_VtU9PA”]

Though I personally thought the scenes were kind of icky and prurient and shot from an exploitative male gaze, they were also impersonal. There was a lack of intimacy between the two women that was obvious in that they rarely kiss, they don’t make eye contact, and they’re usually not facing one another. This dramatically contrasts from the sex scenes depicted in the graphic novel. Maroh’s sex scenes, like in the movie, are also quite graphic. The difference is that they’re not just about pleasure; they’re about connection, intimacy, and love.

Blue Graphic Novel Sex resize — Emma performs oral sex on Clementine (aka Adele).

In case you’re not familiar with French, Clementine (Adele in the film) is saying, “I love you,” to Emma during sex. There’s also a bit of insecurity and talking/checking-in to alleviate those lingering fears. Not only that, but there’s a whole lot of kissing. As a queer woman, I found the graphic novel’s sex scenes to be far more sensual and sexy than the sort of rutting that the film depicts.

Clementine/Adele performs oral sex on Emma.

The sex of the film version of Blue is the Warmest Color translates into our understanding of their relationship, which didn’t strike me as particularly loving either. We see Adele doing a lot of work to prepare for a party, and Emma being ungrateful for that by critiquing Adele for her lack of creativity. The two of them also share a mutual fear of the other’s infidelity. The break-up scene with Emma hurling slurs at Adele like “little slut” and “little whore” after slapping her is not in the graphic novel either. That hatred and that domestic violence coupled with their loveless sex left me to believe that the director could not fathom two women’s love for one another. He could understand their lust, but not their love. Their reunion scene in the cafe (another movie write-in) cements my theory because it indicates that sex was the primary tether holding them together. Though Emma confesses she doesn’t love Adele anymore, their near public-sex-act shows that their sexual desire is still intact.

The romance of their film relationship dies as soon as they have sex.

Very little of the complexity of Clementine/Adele’s sexuality along with its struggles remain in the film. We see the brutality of her homophobic friends ostracizing her on suspicion of her gayness, but we don’t see her parents finding out she’s gay and kicking her out of her house and disowning her. We don’t see how Emma never really believed that Adele was queer and initially refused to break up with her girlfriend, Sabine, fearing that Adele would wake up one day and suddenly want to be with a man, which made Adele’s infidelity that much more painful. We don’t see how Adele repeatedly freezes Emma out early on in their relationship, asserting her immaturity, individuality, and ability to make choices. We don’t see how Adele feels she must constantly prove her sexuality to Emma. We don’t see that Adele actually hated gay pride events and refused to go to them. We don’t see that she hid her sexuality from her friends/colleagues and became something of a reclusive introvert, which caused strife with her extroverted partner. We don’t see the way Adele battles crushing anxiety and depression due to her slippery identity and relationship troubles. We don’t see how it drives her to drug use. We don’t see how this kills her.

Why did the film cut these moments of tension? Why did it de-complicate its heroine’s sexuality and her personality, for that matter? These details, these events are what make these cardboard characters into people. These questions, struggles, and anxieties are hallmarks of queer sexuality, of queer life. To remove them is to dismiss the difficulties endemic to coming out and being gay in our world. If you also take away the joy and love inherent in those relationships, as the film Blue is the Warmest Color does, what are you left with?

This kiss is full of pain, passion, and love.

I’m not saying all lesbian sex is romantic or that all lesbian relationships are loving, but I’m left wondering what I was watching for three hours? It mostly seemed like a lot of mouth-breathing, sleeping, eating, and fucking. Is that what the film wants us to believe lesbian relationships are all about? The party scene even mouths the director’s inability to understand queer female sexuality with its ignorant conversations about what women do in bed and why women are drawn to each other. I can’t help but feel that there was so much beauty, depth, and complexity to the relationship in the comic that is inexplicably missing from the film. I can’t help but feel the movie gives us scraps and that the queer community is so desperate for a reflection of itself, that we hungrily accept those scraps.

I understand people liking this film, especially queer women. I might’ve liked it, too, if I hadn’t read the graphic novel first. If you liked this movie, do yourself a favor and go to your local comic book store. Pick up a copy of Julie Maroh’s beautifully illustrated graphic novel Blue is the Warmest Color. If you don’t have a comic book shop, I beg you to buy it online. See what you’re missing. See what the film is missing.

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Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.