“You don’t have to do what your mother has done / This is your life, this new life has begun/It’s your day, Woman’s Day” – Lyrics to ‘Shaking The Tree’ by Youssou N’Dour & Peter Gabriel from Youssou N’Dour’s album ‘The Lion’ (1989)
My viewing habits continue to be influenced by Mark Cousins’ exhaustive (and exhausting) Women Make Film which illustrates how ignored, or underrated, women directors have been in recent years.
Among those belatedly recognizing the need for a gender rethink are the Sight and Sound film critics who went full woke and voted Chantal Akerman’s epic ‘Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles’ as the greatest film of all time.. This was a controversial and, frankly, contrary choice but at least makes the case that the late Belgian director is worthy of being regarded alongside auteurs like Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock.
That said, the list itself has many notable omissions. No place for any of the Godfather movies plus nothing by Luis Bunuel or The Coen Brothers while ‘Daisies’, a silly, surreal and horribly dated Czech movie from the 1960s merits inclusion as a bogus ‘Feminist’ classic.
The most recent film in the Sight & Sound list is 2019’s seductive ”Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ directed by Céline Sciamma. I saw this after being hugely impressed by Sciamma’s earlier movies ‘Girlhood’ (2014) and ‘Tomboy’ (2011). Her latest movie ‘Petite Maman’ (2021) is also excellent. If you want to understand the difference between the male and female gaze, any of these movies are essential viewing.
One of my better decisions of the year was to take out a subscription to MUBI, the online streaming site that takes global and independent movies seriously.
I signed up initially to see Andrea Arnold’s ‘Cow’ which, despite all the praise, proved to be a bit of a let down. Perhaps, as a Vegan, I didn’t need to be persuaded that farm animals have feelings too! In compensation Mubi currently hosts three excellent shorts by the English director of which her Oscar winning ‘Wasp’ (2003) is the most powerful (and depressing!)
Mubi also introduced me to the American director Kelly Reichart’s audaciously offbeat Western, ‘First Cow’ .
In a completely diffirent vein , I was bowled over by Archana Phadke’s ‘About Love’ (2019). a funny, touching and revealing Indian documentary about three generations of the Phadke family living together in Mumbai.
You can’t imagine either of these films packing in punters at the Multiplex but they stand head and shoulders above most over-hyped blockbusters.
I did venture out to a real cinema to see Alcarràs , a marvellous Spanish-Italian drama directed by Carla Simón which led me to her previous film Summer 1993 (2017). Simón makes powerful points without patronising her audience or pandering to popular taste.
For me, this has been a year for appreciating great women filmmakers but there were, of course, many fine movies made by men too!. My favourites this year were:
- Ennio (2020)- – Giuseppe Tornatore’s affectionate tribute to the late Ennio Morricone using a lengthy interview with the great man himself and well-chosen clips to show the full range of his movie soundtrack work.
- The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021) – Joel Coen and Shakespeare may not seem like an obvious match but Coen brings real style and substance to the Scottish play.
- Argentina 1985 directed bySantiago Mitre (2022) is proof that truth is often stranger than fiction. This is a legal drama without the Hollywood clichés and, according to my Argentinian friend, an accurate account of the fight to give voice to the disappeared as part of the process of replacing a dictatorship to some semblance of democracy.
I’m looking forward to discovering many other movies, old and new, in 2023.
