Precious Bodily Fluids

Tag: feminism

  • Double-Doubles: In The Cut

    The second, and later film from Jane Campion, In The Cut is not quite as “critically acclaimed,” as they say, but it should be. At least, it should be given more credit cinematically, since Campion perfects her already solid technique and creates a really impressive narrative, rich and cohesive, with elements swirling around in remarkable…

  • Fetish Objet Petit A: The Piano

    Two from Jane Campion, in order from older to not-as-old. The Piano is one of those films that peppers syllabi throughout film studies courses, functioning as it does as a textbook case of numerous cinematic motifs and psychoanalytic themes. As a plus, it’s a somewhat “feminist” film, in the vein of a Mildred Pierce or…

  • Volver

    It turns out that any consideration of Volver is somewhat lacking without having seen Pedro Almodóvar’s earlier film The Flower of My Secret. Marsha Kinder’s review in Film Quarterly (Spring 2007, Vol. 60, Issue 3) takes this approach and then some, purporting that Volver is best understood in relation not only to that previous film…

  • Office Killer

    Cindy Sherman’s only film (so far) came after years of notorious photography, most notably the Untitled Film Stills series. She is both the photographer and the photographed, the subject and the object. Through the years of photography that represent this particular series, one can observe a decided progression as Sherman critiques classic male gaze of…

  • The Draughtsman’s Contract

    Feminists have almost as bad a rapport as male chauvinists, and not always without reason. But when you’re accustomed to seeing “regular” movies and then see something like Peter Greenaway’s The Draughtsman’s Contract, you’re more inclined to take the feminist point of view. It is, of course, not only that classic cinema (and contemporary, for…