The Film Experience

Year in Review. Every afternoon, a new wrap-up. Today Glenn on his year with #52FilmsByWomen

The hashtag ‘52FilmsByWomen’ was started by Women in Film as a means of getting people to consciously watch at least one film a week directed by a woman. It seems like a simple mission considering the number of films many of us watch for both work and pleasure, but I have no doubt that of the 10,000+ people who pledged to do it, many didn’t reach the goal. That’s all right, though, because I saw enough for two.

No, really. In 2016, I watched 105 titles including feature films, shorts, and documentaries. They cover classics, new releases, hidden gems, animations, comedy, horror, and from all over the world. Here are...

TEN OBSERVATIONS FROM MY YEAR OF #52FILMSBYWOMEN

Subverting Toxic Masculinity
We don’t just want more women making films for their fine-tuned insights into the lives of women – Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women and Anna Rose Holmer’s The Fits being perhaps the most obvious examples among this year’s releases that I saw – but also for their unique takes on men and masculinity.

Look no further for Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Chevalier for a film that couldn’t have been made by a man, but which has so much to say in this year of “toxic masculinity”. What a shame it didn't catch fire with arthouse audiences and award voters. I wasn't too taken by Tsangari's Attenberg, but I responded to Chevalier more than any of Yorgos Lanthimos' works so far, so make of that what you will.

I’ll Go Anywhere with Andrea Arnold
From the surveilled streets of Scotland in Red Road, the council estates of Essex in Fish Tank, the moors of Wuthering Heights, and now, apparently, the American Midwest...

Arnold’s directorial style – which has won her an Oscar for Wasp and three Jury Prizes at Cannes – fits in surprisingly well to American Honey’s story of a group of magazine salesman drifters seeking the American dream and finding a twisted version of it in roadside motels. Nearly three-hours, but curiously captivating throughout including an awards-worthy performance by Riley Keough...

They Make the Documentaries That Become Movies
When it was announced that Jeff Nichols’ Loving would be classified by the Academy as an adapted screenplay, it was a thankful admission that Nichols had directly used Nancy Buirski’s award-winning documentary The Loving Story as its backbone. Loving was just one story this year to be directed by a man that had already been told in a female-directed documentary. Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg’s Marathon: The Patriots Day Bombing preceded Peter Berg’s Patriots Day, and the Slenderman myth as told in Irene Taylor Brodsky’s Beware the Slenderman is currently being adapted into a feature film by David Birke.

Speaking of Documentaries…
Anybody who is serious about watching non-fiction film, whether that be old or new, should easily be able to reach 52 female-directed films in a year. 41 of the titles on my list were documentaries – the best of which included the late Chantal Akerman’s sublimely photographed From the East and her final work No Home Movie, Kristen Johnson’s Oscar contender Cameraperson, Jayne Loader’s National Film Registry initiated Atomic Café (co-directed with Kevin and Pierce Rafferty), Freida Lee Mock’s Oscar winner Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision, Ava DuVernay’s vital 13th, Laurie Anderson’s exquisite Heart of a Dog, Anna Broinowski’s eye-opening and award-winning Pauline Hanson: Please Explain and the gonzo animated comedy of Penny Lane’s Nuts!

Who Likes Short Shorts?
Most of the short films by women I watched in 2016 were older titles, but that doesn’t mean they don’t count – and they’re all on YouTube or Vimeo. Check out Kitchen Sink by the New Zealand director of Crush and Jesus’ Son, Alison McLean, labelled by a fellow antipodean friend as the best New Zealand short film ever made. Why not check out duel Emmy winner Jill Soloway’s Una Hora Por Favora with Michaela Watkins. And there’s even a Chantal Akerman film, La Chambre, just waiting to be viewed. The best new film was Del Kathryn Barton’s extravagantly animated Oscar Wilde’s The Nightingale and the Rose (which was on the long list for Best Animated Short last year with Oscar but didn't make the finals) featuring the voice work of Geoffrey Rush, David Wenham and Mia Wasikowska. Wasikowska, it must be noted, has also been behind the camera recently. She directed the best segment of omnibus feature Madly.

Here is a list of titles available to watch right now that I compiled for Lady Clever. The list includes shorts by Jane Campion, Niki Caro and Shirley Clarke.

Born in Flames (1983)

Vintage ‘Chick Flicks’
The indie scene of the 1970s and ‘80s was far scrappier than that of the 1990s, and women made some of the most daring of these films. All the way back in January we looked at Donna Deitch’s quietly revelatory Desert Hearts, but I was also watched Smithereens from director Susan Seidelman (pre-Madonna and Desperately Seeking Susan), the highly-influential Girlfriends from Claudia Well, and the downright radical one-two punch of Working Girls and Born in Flames from Lizzie Borden (below). It’s time these films all got discovered on a much bigger scale.

Restoration and Criterion
How great was it to see Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust and Kelly Reichart’s River of Grass restored and rescued from the depths of time? Reichart’s film, a sort of Badlands-in-Florida with the most comically low-stakes crime spree in cinema history is an oddity amongst the filmmaker’s career as we know it today, but an essential part of film history. Likewise, Dash’s film isn’t just an important landmark – the first film by an African American woman to get a major theatrical release after the likes of Kathleen Kathleen Collins’ Losing Ground and Jessie Maple’s Will were relegated to self-distribution – but also a work of deeply refined beauty. I look forward to seeing the restoration of it after my viewing on VHS (!) at an archive (!!).

It’s disappointing then that The Criterion Collection continue to ignore these films (plus those of the vintage titles listed above, and many more) given they are in a way the gatekeepers of cinephelia. By my count, they released only one woman-directed title in 2016 – Laurie Anderson’s Heart of a Dog, one of the best films I saw all year. This is something that ties into the very idea of #52FilmsByWomen, since making the conscious decision to acknowledge these films expands everybody’s minds and knowledge, which is only a good thing. But, hey, gotta have that little-seen rarity Inside Llewyn Davis by those little known Coen Brothers, right?

*eyeroll*

Beyoncé and Julie
...speaking of Dash’s film, how great was it seeing Beyoncé (alongside Kahlil Joseph, Jonas Äkerlund, Melina Matsoukis, Dikayl Rimmasch, Todd Tourso, and Mark Romanek) be so clearly inspired by Daughters of the Dust (1991) for Lemonade. I enjoyed the album and the film that was released alongside it, but reminding the world of Daughters in the Dust may be its best thing to come out of it.

New Talents
It was exciting to see works by newcomers like Anna Rose Holmer (The Fits), Sophia Takal (Always Shine), Elizabeth Wood (White Girl) and Celia Rowlson-Hall (Ma) all give strong defining cases for directorial careers that ought to be super-interesting. Whatever my issues with White Girl, it has verve for days; likewise The Fits which I felt stuck its landing despite some wobbles on dismount. I was even moderately impressed by Katie Holmes’ directorial debut, All We Had, which could have at least been a Pieces of April sized indie hit about ten years ago. For her sake, and because I love an underdog story, I hope she gets another shot with a screenplay that isn’t a complete mess.

Cameraperson (2016)

The Best Film of the Year!
Yet again, the best film of the year was directed by a woman. After flipping for Celina Sciamma’s Girlhood last year, this year I fell head over heels for Kirsten Johnson’s Cameraperson, with Mia Hanson-Love’s Things To Come not too far behind with my personal favourite Huppert performance of 2016.

All 105 films I watched this year can be seen at Letterbox.

Do you have any take-aways from these movies or any others directed by women that you saw this year? Will you undertake #52FilmsByWomen in 2017?