Helen hits the International Film Festival in Auckland for a taste of what the film fest has on offer for 2010. Here, a theme of women, with Joan Rivers, Women Without Men, and more…
Helen hits the International Film Festival in Auckland for a taste of what the film fest has on offer for 2010. Here, a theme of women, with Joan Rivers, Women Without Men, and The Arbor.
WOMEN WITHOUT MEN
Shirin Neshat, 2009
Set in 1953 Iran during the lead up of an American and British aided coup Women Without Men portrays the lives of four women. Munis is nearing thirty and her brother is forcing her into marriage when she would rather be supporting the fight against the growing military threat to the government. In contrast her sweet virginal friend Faezeh is besotted with Munis’ older brother Ali who is preparing for his own marriage. Zarin a prostitute who does not utter a word throughout the film is haunted by a faceless man and Farrok who is unhappy in her marriage to a decorated general in the Iranian army.
When Farrok decides to leave her husband and purchase a rundown orchard in the outskirts of Tehran the women’s lives are connected in unexpected ways.
Iranian photographer and video artist Shirin Neshat presents a visually stunning film. This is not an anti-male film toting a feminist agenda; rather Neshat seeks to present the possibility of an alternative for women who struggle to fit into a society on the brink of imploding.
The film seemed a little disjointed at times and the characters sometimes struggled with the heaviness of the topics but a powerful film overall.
JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK
2010
Legendary comedienne Joan Rivers is a force of nature in this candid and hilarious documentary. It is a year in the life of the 75 year old who is showing no signs of slowing down.
Rivers has struggled in recent years to keep her career going and she knows the fickle beast of show business can be an unforgiving mistress. At the start of the year she has just turned 75 and her appointment schedule is a little too empty for her liking. The rest of the documentary follows her scrambling her way back to the top of her game.
Watching grandmother Rivers drop the F and C bombs during one of her stand up routines had the audience roaring with laughter. It was quite possibly one of the funniest films I have watched in a long time.
She paved the way for women in comedy and this documentary demonstrates why she is still the queen of comedy.
THE ARBOR
Clio Barnard, 2010
Clio Barnard directs this hard hitting true story of Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar and her troubled relationship with her eldest daughter Lorraine.
Andrea Dunbar wrote gritty plays about her upbringing on the notorious Buttershaw Estate and tragically died at the age of 29 when Lorraine was 11 years old.
Clio Barnard spent two years interviewing Lorraine, other family members and residents of the Buttershaw estate. The interviews were used as the basis of a screenplay where actors lip synch to voice overs of the real people.
The result of Barnard’s unconventional techniques is a harrowing journey. In the present day Lorraine is serving time for the man slaughter of her youngest child and she is shunned by the rest of the family. Lorraine’s life shares many parallels to her mothers; three children to different fathers, volatile relationships and substance abuse.
Lorraine also grapples with her ethnicity – her father is Pakistani while her siblings both have white fathers – which meant her experience of childhood was markedly different from her younger sister and brother.
The Arbor is an unflinching look at the legacy Andrea Dunbar left in the wake of her death.
By Helen King, 16 July 2010.
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