Thursday, August 30, 2007

Sherrybaby

Maggie Gyllenhaal as Sherry Swanson in Sherrybaby

Sherrybaby
is just one of three films made by women being shown at the National Media Museum this week (the other two are both costume films/romances, Lady Chatterley and Copying Beethoven). The obvious question to ask of any film written and directed by a woman is whether the story, characterisation or treatment is in some way distinctive because of the gender of its principal creator. In the case of Laurie Collyer's film, the aesthetics are fairly conventional, but a case could be made for a story which focuses on a mother-daughter relationship and has at its centre a woman whose relationships with men have so far generally been either abusive or based upon some form of exchange value rather than genuine feeling.

My own view is that it is usually more interesting to look at the relationship between the writer/director and her lead actors. In this case, it isn't unreasonable to suggest that Maggie Gyllenhaal must have had great faith in the script and felt comfortable working with Laurie Collyer. At the beginning of the film, Sherry Swanson has just been released from prison after serving time for thefts undertaken to feed a drug habit. The film resembles more familiar European social realist narratives in its detailed depiction of probation and hostel life. In the first half of the film, Sherry has a series of encounters in which she has sex with three different men, partly to get something from them and partly to feed her own desire. The scenes need to be graphic and they are. Just as with Jane Campion and Meg Ryan in In the Cut, Collyer and Gyllenhaal serve up sex that is both more 'real' and matter of fact and in a sense more 'adult' than in most conventional Hollywood treatments.

My only 'problem' with this film, which may be my own problem, is that Maggie Gyllenhaal is just too good an actor and too big a star for the film overall. This is not a criticism of her acting. Rather, for this male viewer, she is just too alive, too 'magnetic' as well as too beautiful and always dominates the frame in what is otherwise a small-scale and restrained film.

The film clearly got a great deal of publicity in the US, even if it didn't play everywhere. The IMDB bulletin boards are crammed with comments, mainly on the sex scenes or on the aspects of dysfunctional family life on display. It is noticeable that few if any comments make any reference to the director. But quite a few do comment on Gyllenhaal -- many in a way which makes me despair about audiences (though, of course, they are in turn criticised by others). Some comments also complain about a lack of 'closure' for the story. I think this does reveal that the narrative drive (a woman who seeks to win back her daughter's affection and to escape from her past) in the film is not something that a mass US audience recognises. Yet I would say that there is a rather conventional ending to the film (which might, as some commentators suggest, be rather abrupt in depicting a change in behaviour).

Interviews with Laurie Collyer on indieWire reveal that she went to film school only after spending several years working in various welfare/care services. This experience is the basis for the story and it's good to see an American film dealing with such issues. However, it says something about film distribution perhaps in that the film may not have achieved the limited profile it has managed without Maggie Gyllenhaal's presence. In the UK, Ken Loach is able to make a film with similar characters, but using less well-known names.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

The Journey

Shruiti Menon as Delilah and Suhasini V. Nair as Kiran in Sancharram (The Journey) (India 2004)

In preparation for a Saturday School on Indian Cinema, I came across this film from Kerala in South India, directed by Ligy J. Pullappally. It is partly derived from a real life incident in Kerala when two young women students at university fell in love but were sent back to their parents. The next day, one of the women committed suicide. Recognising elements in the news story that had been in her earlier short film, Ligy
Pullappally set out to write a feature-length script which would offer a more positive narrative for lesbian relationships in India involving young women expected to marry according to family customs.

The Journey follows a higher profile film, Fire (1996), directed by the Canadian-based Indian director Deepa Mehta. This film featured major stars of Indian 'parallel cinema', including the central couple, Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das, and received a significant international release as well as raising controversy in India for what were seen in some quarters as attacks on the institution of marriage (the two women are sisters-in-law). By contrast, The Journey is a low budget feature with relatively little international distribution. I rented the film via the Guardian's rental service 'Sofa Cinema' and discovered that it is distributed on DVD in the UK by Millivres Multimedia, a company specialising in gay and lesbian films.

Like Deepa Mehta, Ligy Pullappally was born in India but then moved to North America (Chicago) where she eventually became a 'public interest lawyer'. She used some prize money to allow her to develop her interest in filmmaking and returned to Kerala to make The Journey –– which received support from the the state's film commission. Technically, The Journey is an example of 'diaspora filmmaking'. Gurinder Chadha with Bride and Prejudice and Mira Nair with a string of films (including The Namesake to be screened on this course) are further examples. Trained in the West, these women have each offered different perspectives on Indian culture and on concepts of Indian Cinema.

Although Ligy Pullappally is relatively inexperienced as a filmmaker, The Journey bears comparison with other films made in Kerala as 'independent' or 'art' films. There is a popular film industry in Kerala making comedies and action films in the regional language Malayalam, but the art cinema of Kerala also has a strong reputation in India -- and in the case of director Adoor Gopalakrishnan, around the world. Kerala has the highest education achievement levels in India and a relatively good record on social equality -- as well as vying with Bengal in the North East as a cultural centre. This makes the story of The Journey more poignant. Kerala is also unusual in India in having three distinct religious communities co-existing peacefully (on the whole). In the film, one young woman is a Hindu and the other a Christian -- but both feel the power of tradition.

The Journey is a very simple story, but it is told with conviction and the setting (in the hills of Northern Kerala) and the characters are well presented. We may well look at an extract from the film on the course. If you want to know more, there is a useful 'official website'.


Tuesday, August 7, 2007

'Pascale Ferran' - sex and death . . .


I guess a female French director was always going to adapt Lady Chatterley better than an English male -- right? I'm certainly keen since all the reviews I've read emphasise its ability to translate the sensual into the visual. There's a lot of cultural theory to back up the belief (okay, my belief) that women are better at this, than men. Alright, theory written by women, but with capital letters and everything - honest . . .

I watched Beau Travail again last night -- preparing for the course -- and was swamped by its brilliant creation (re-creation?) of sensuous and sensual experiences, just through our eyes. Also, Claire Denis' ability to suggest and communicate characters' inner lives through juxtapositions and interweaving of shots (not anything so structured as a narrative).

Amy Taubin, reviewing Lady Chatterley in Film Comment (Vol 43/3) talks about how Ferran deals with the primal experiences of death (Petit Arrangements avec les morts - sounds great, won at Cannes - but nowhere on distribution or DVD?) and now sex. She praises Ferran's ability to create an equivalent to third person, literary narrative and order the "inchoate feelings and ideas exhibited by the people onscreen". She further concludes that: "Lawrence believed that the mind was the most important organ of sexual experience. Ferran comes closer to proving that theory than he did". Taubin clearly claiming something more than a film the dirty mac brigade. I'm really curious to see if this film can really combine a literary voice, a sense of the inner life of the characters and a vibrant visual sexuality . . . ? But I'm sure we can come up with some examples already?

New Wave Women in France....

Pascale Ferran's Lady Chatterley comes to Bradford this month -- trailing glory, having won a number of the French film oscars, Cesars, including Best Film (with stiff competition from Indigenes/Days of Glory. An interesting article appeared in The Independent in relation to it 'The French Connection' (Geoffrey McNab). It discussed how the French film industry was doing a better job of revering our living 'auteur' directors than we do, how they were doing a better job of trawling well-known and obscure literary classics (Elizabeth Taylor's Angel)to produce successful films.
Do we agree? It seems to peddle a number of well-established stereotypes, although there is no denying that the French culture industry seems enviable in the way it cherishes a sense of identity and artistry. But are we really that bad by comparison?

I start to admit that maybe our nearest cultural cousins have the edge with the Cahiers du cinéma manifesto outlining 12 objectives for cinema in France. Maybe a little nervous about where Sarkozy is going, it looks to outline objectives for preserving and supporting the operations of the French film industry, stating films are important as 'shaping our views of ourselves and of others'. Amen to that.
Ferran's use of her winning speech to plea for better conditions and commitment to the French film industry - worried about a growing gap between the financing of "rich" (commercial) films and "poor" (art) films as a result of a system "that betrays the heritage of the greatest French filmmakers". French filmmakers seems to acknowledge their debt to history and to cherish French culture in a enviably integrated approach -- or is this sense of history a handicap, rather than an advantage?