Angles: Women Working in Film and Video (1994)

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Ce Montreal World Film Festival Was it the year of cross-dressing? BY A: the summer of 1993 cooled into fall, Montreal cinemas filled to bursting with locals, tourists and international media here for the 11-day Montreal World Film Festival. The choices were daunting: more than 240 films from 60 countries. Thirty-two features and less than a dozen shorts were directed or co-directed by women — a better record than in past years, but still a disappointing proportion, considering the total volume of entries. Many women were screening their first feature film. The following are some of my impressions. Did someone declare this the Year of Cross-dressing and forget to tell me? No fewer than a half-dozen films in the festival—narrative and documengg tary—featured men or boys who dress as women. What could explain this phenomenon? No one seems to be sure, but the popularity of The Crying Game and Jennie Livingston’s Paris Is Burning doesn’t hurt these films’ chances of commercial success. Lois Siegel’s Lip Gloss (Canada) is a wry documentary focusing on female impersonators. In candid interviews, the participants reveal intimate — often painful — details about their lives. Their openness and self-deprecating humor make an engaging 70 minutes. Split: William to Chrysis, a Portrait of a Drag Queen (U.S.), co-directed by Ellen Fisher and Andrew Weeks, is a posthumous look at a flamboyant New Yorker who once counted Salvador Dali as a close friend. Unfortunately, poor video camera work, and sound recording turn a large number of talking heads into tedium. Paule Baillargeon’s The Sex of the Stars/Les sexe des étoiles, the Quebec feature that opened the festival, won the festival prize for best Canadian film. It’s the moving story of Camille, a 12-year-old girl coming to terms with her relationship with her father, who is — you guessed it — a transvestite. “Nature sometimes makes mistakes,” he tells his despondent daughter. “Sometimes a woman is born in a man’s body.” A second recurring theme in films by women was male abandonment. Portrayals of men who leave a sympathetic female protagonist alone, or with their child, were common to at least eight features. The parting is never mutual. Some of the men are killed, others commit suicide, still others leave for another woman or for unexplained reasons. Unlike most Hollywood movies, these films — originating from countries as diverse as Italy, Peru and India — offer no happy endings, no Prince Charm 8 # ANGLES KR ACT AeaR OY: § “Something Within Me” P ReE S$ NER ings. The women simply carry on with their lives, without male companions. Margarethe Von Trotta’s The Long Silence/Tl lungo silenzio, an Italian/French/German co-production, was voted the most popular film by festivalgoers. The story centers on the loving relationship between Carla, a gynecologist, and her husband Marco, a judge fighting corruption. We follow their lives as Marco investigates an intricate arms-running network in Rome, while Carla worries about his safety. She understands that they must be careful, but she’s also tired of all the elaborate security precautions — such as a pack of bodyguards with Uzis that follow them everywhere, even on a romantic holiday by the sea. When Carla’s worst fears are confirmed and her husband is assassinated, she takes the courageous step of speaking out publicly against violence and corruption, encouraging others to do the same. Before screening the film, Von Trotta told the audience, “I hope you won’t be too depressed. I want to inspire hope as well.” Set amidst the Saturday Night Fever craze of the late 1970s, Patricia Mazuy’s Travolta et moi (France) is a bittersweet tale of adolescent infatuation and game-playing. Seventeen-year-old Nicolas thinks that to have a girl, all you have to do is to want her. To prove it, he bets his buddy that he will sleep with the third girl who gets on the bus. The unwitting victim turns out to be 16-year-old Christine, who quickly falls under the spell of the philosophizing Nicolas. The movie’s soundtrack evokes a specific era, but its evocation of the pain of first love is timeless. Canadian filmmakers aren’t renowned for their talent at producing slick, sexy, suspense thrillers. Usually, we leave that to the Americans. Surprise, surprise. Toronto director Gail Harvey breaks this tradition with her stylish film, Cold Sweat. The story follows a hit man who’s forced to face his conscience when the ghost of one of his “hits” comes back to haunt and taunt him. With its unpredictable plot twists, Cold Sweat kept me guessing — and laughing. An unforgettable fluorescent body-painting sex scene stands out. Harvey, a former UPI and set stills photographer, describes her second feature as “an erotic thriller with overtones of black comedy.” Emma Joan Morris and Jerret Engle’s documentary Something Within Me (U.S.) is an inspiring look at an im