50 Films Made By Women – Part 1 of 10

And so we go back to the start. One hundred films directed by women. We’ve come a long way to get here, so listen up film industry, with the help of some truly movie-loving friends, this is how to shine the light on the female filmmaking talent out there. Not difficult at all. You are simply not looking hard enough. A hundred is a very small number by the way, we’ve missed a hundred more here, a hundred more there, another hundred who knows where. So, to begin:

The House is Black (1963) – Forough Farrokhzad — Asif Khan

“I said, if I had wings of a dove I would fly away and be at rest. I would go far away and take refuge in the desert. I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest. For I have seen misery and wickedness on Earth.” The feminist and modernist Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad died in 1967 at the age of 32 in a car accident. She only made one film in her life, a short documentary about life inside a leper colony. Arguably the greatest Iranian film, this is a cinematic essay that shows the inherent and true beauty where it’s not believed to exist. People with leprosy live miserable existence undoubtedly, it’s a horrible condition that isolates individuals from other human beings, including their own families. Yet in this miracle of a film, an iconic a powerful statement of the utmost kind, Farrokhzad focuses on the similarities. Similarity of existence, of life and creation. It uses verses from Old Testament, the Quran and Farrokhzad’s own poetry juxtaposed to incredibly edited and photographed footage. The result as I mentioned is nothing less than a miracle, a merger of poetry and cinema unlike any. A stunning depiction of the inner most human beauty, resilience and ordinary emotions in an extraordinary way.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) – Amy Heckerling — Al Robinson

Every year, several hundred films are produced and released. The majority of them are directed by men. But a few of them are directed by women, and one such film is 1982’s Fast Times at Ridgemont High. It was directed by Amy Heckerling, who is also known for European Vacation, Look Who’s Talking, and Clueless. The film was also written by a young and unknown writer-director named Cameron Crowe. Fast Times at Ridgemont High is a simple story that follows a year in the life of several students who deal with mundane, and sometimes not-so mundane issues. Its main characters are the traditional type of people you knew in high school – the cool guy, the cool girl, the wanna-be cool girl, the hipster, the geek, and the stoner. That stoner is played by an unforgettable Sean Penn, who I think steals the movie. Fast Times at Ridgemont High is a great mix of comedy meets drama that never feels too strong in either direction. The thing that ultimately makes this film work so well is that director Heckerling took Crowe’s script about these ordinary young lives, and made them interesting and fun to watch.

The 3 Rooms of Melancholia (2004) – Pirjo Honkasalo — Paddy Mulholland

Among the least aggressively feminist filmmakers working today is Finland’s Pirjo Honkasalo – a talent less internationally-recognized as her countryman Aki Kaurismäki, yet no less talented. Honkasalo’s films display more of a humanist strain (oh how I hate the feminist/humanist debate), yet see to her list of frequent collaborators (writer Pirkko Saisio, composer Sanna Salmenkallio), and rejoice in the contribution to cinema of the finest lesbian filmmaker living today. From 2004, The 3 Rooms of Melancholia is an artistic masterpiece and a moral one too, a document of the suffering engendered by masculine political ideologies that seek to conquer land and people alike during times of conflict. An appropriately melancholy film, this documentary achieves a level of stylistic achievement and of emotional insight that barely another non-fiction film even aspires to. Honkasalo’s films are consistently stunning and consistently stirring, and The 3 Rooms of Melancholia may be her best in every regard.

The Night Porter (1974) – Liliana Cavani — Steve Schweighofer

Firstly, we have to remember that the span of time between the end of the horrors of WWII and the release (or unleashing) of Liliana’s The Night Porter was less than 30 years – almost the same amount of time that separates the present day from the first Gulf War or the recent conflict in the Balkans. The subjects of Nazism and the Holocaust were still tender and a bit of an obsession with filmmakers, who either were gingerly respectful or operatically fascinated with drawing connections between fascism and sexual proclivity. So when Ms Cavani essentially kicked the doors down with The Night Porter, the reaction ranged from repulsion to outright horror. The story takes place about 20 years after the war. A young woman, a concentration camp survivor, spots one of her former captors working as a night porter. They resume the relationship they had during her internment while being pursued by his Nazi brethren who are set on eliminating all witnesses to the crimes committed during the war. Sometimes a film can have a cultural impact and achieve cult status without being particularly great cinema and that is the status of The Night Porter. The film can brag good performances from Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling, two actors who thrived on bravely portraying sexually ambivalent roles throughout their careers. It can also boast a bold portrayal of the interconnection between ritual, power, control and pleasure mixed with a dash of Stockholm Syndrome. Cavani’s expressionist style is hit and miss, but individual scenes remain memorable as she waltzes her couple to their eventual doom. Most critics were appalled – even Roger Ebert called the film “nasty” (and he was Russ Meyer’s co-writer on Beyond the Valley of the Dolls a few years prior), but the film did trigger several essayists to explore the whys and wherefores of Cavani’s themes. Susan Sontag famously wrote, “The color is black, the material leather, the seduction is beauty, the justification is honesty, the aim is ecstasy, the fantasy is death.” Cavani’s attempts to connect psycho-sexual behavior with socio-political themes makes today’s cinematic efforts in edgy eroticism (50 Shades of anything) look about as kinky as a Sears Catalog, and for that, she – and we – have the frank openness of the 70s to thank.

Peepli Live (2010) – Anusha Rizvi — Asif Khan 

Debut Indian filmmaker, Anusha Rizvi’s 2010 film is a satire that depicts the topic of farmer suicide in darkly humorous way. This is a film that finds means of storytelling as well as subtext off a grimly serious topic. It’s a wonder how this ‘indie’ film free of glamour and convenience became a huge hit in India. It was shown at many festivals, including Sundance and was the country’s official entry for the Oscars. Peepli in the title is a village this film depicts while Live is referring to the live reporting of an event. The event? Farmer Natha (Omkar Das Manikpuri) decides to commit suicide when he finds out how the families of poor farmers who take their lives are heavily compensated by the government. He is from a very poor family (consisting of his brother, sister-in-law and an ailing mother), whose financial and farming condition for that matter is awful. The banks are demanding payment of their loans or else the family would be stripped off the land and house. Peepli Live‘s story is layered and expansive, not only does it portray a poor farmer family’s adverse conditions but the film also pokes real stingers at the media and politics. How this little village becomes a nationwide phenomenon thanks to the selfish nature of people (news channels fight for the best suicide coverage/political parties have their own damaging agendas), is absurdly humorous and at the same time, piercing. Using mostly character actors and crafting a compelling screenplay, Rizvi made an inspired film both a wake up call for our apathetic collective consciousness and an irresistibly entertaining dark comedy.

Originally posted July 2015.