the female point of view

Some month ago i was tired of watching movies made by male directors. Not only does Hollywood has borders and limits they never cross, it is also the limits of the male point of view that you can see in so many movies out there.

There are three Female directors who got my attention. Marina de Van, Catherine Breillat and Maya Deren. They are all very different, and made very different movies, but all of them found a way to communicate there own point of view, there own opinion, to express it into a movie.

Marina de Van did one feature film, Dans ma peau / In my Skin (2002), so intense, sensitive and disturbing, it was very hard watching.

"In My Skin" does not address cutting as a social phenomenon: Esther is too individual to come across as a case study. For her, it seems to be a way of connecting with her body on her own terms. In the middle of a boring meeting, cutting herself reminds her that reality exists beyond the corporate world. de Van disavows any intention of social critique in her emphasis on the business milieu. Instead, she thinks "it was important to anchor my character in the real world."

(Source: Body of Work; Marina de Van Discusses "In My Skin" by Steve Erickson)

In progression of the movie, "Esther" disconnects more and more from the world around her. It is not the inability to communicate, but the privat and personal matter of her experience with the own body.

Here is a clip on Youtube.

Catherine Breillat made a series of movies about a topic that is hard to name. You could describe it as "sexual influences" from the female point of view. Her early movies, i watched 36 fillette (1988) and Une vraie jeune fille (1976), focus on the very first experiences in the age of 14 or 15. Romance (1999) might be the last Movie of that series. Here are the last words:

"People say, a woman is no woman, until she's given birth to a child. I believe it's true. Everything before that, has lost its significance. I gave my son his father's first name. If someone up above counts the souls, then we're quits."

I liked watching Breillat Movies, because she found a very easy and direct way, to communicate topics some people would never think or talk about.

I never found a real connection to the short films from Maya Deren, but i liked to see what you can create with such simple and selfmade tools, that the imagination and idea is what matters.