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52 Films by Women Vol 5. 27. LOST TRANSMISSIONS (Director: Katharine O’Brien)

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  Contains spoilers When we first meet Theo (Simon Pegg) at the start of the Los Angeles-set drama, Lost Transmissions , he seems like just another drunken show-off who latches onto a piano at a party. There he is, tinkling the blackened ivories, composing ditties about the assembled company. Only, he is no No ël Coward. The esteemed Mr C would not describe Theo’s friend Angus (Jamie Harris) as ‘tough as old boots with the laces undone’. Nor would he rhyme Hannah (Juno Temple) with ‘bananas.’ ‘Is she a tragedy or a mystery?’ he asks aloud, before luring the poor guest to the piano herself and inviting her to sing. She responds with a fragile rendition of Daniel Johnston’s ‘True Love will find you in the end’, which Theo spoils by joining in. He is a British expatriate music producer with problems. The film follows Hannah, who has her own self-esteem issues, as she is drawn in to solve them. Writer-director Katharine O’Brien based her film on a true story. Her intention is to show...
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52 Films by Women Vol 5. 26. TAKE ME SOMEWHERE NICE (Director: Ena Sendijarevič)

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  During a toilet break on a coach journey, Alma (Sara Luna Zori č ), the teenage hero of Holland-based Bosnian-born writer-director Ena Sendijarevi č’s debut feature, Take Me Somewhere Nice , stares out at the landscape. It takes us a while to register, but Alma has not seen mountains before. She grew up in the Netherlands with her mother – all flat landscapes. Having flown to Sarajevo to visit her sick father in hospital in Podveležje 138 kilometres away, she receives no help from her sullen wheeler-dealer cousin, Emir (Ernad Prnjavoric); he picks her up from the airport, shows her his apartment, with nothing in the fridge but stacked water bottles and a single orange, which Alma squeezes maliciously, but then leaves her to entertain herself. The coach departs without her. Unlike Alma, the audience knows the danger – coach drivers never wait. She is left walking down a B road, until a passing driver (Jasna Duričič) picks her up. Alma has no relationship with the country of her ...
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52 Films by Women Vol 5. 25. SEA FEVER (Director: Neasa Hardiman)

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  Having directed episodes of the hit Netflix show, Jessica Jones , as well as the British TV series Happy Valley and Scott and Bailey , the Irish writer-director Neasa Hardiman makes her feature film debut with the highly generic eco-thriller, Sea Fever. In it, a fishing boat out of permitted waters makes an acquaintance with a glowing multi-tentacled sea creature, whose venom causes human eyes to shoot out of their sockets. That, you might say, is more like it. However, Hardiman is not much interested in gore. Rather she imagines said creature as the guardian of fishing stocks, present to warn humans of the dangers of over-fishing. Your eyes are bigger than your stomach, she is saying, so much so that they are fit to burst. Her heroine is shy, socially awkward biochemist and behavioural scientist, Siobhan (Hermione Corfield). She observes patterns, draws and concludes and exclaims, ‘that’s not right’. She also avoids birthday cake. After a reluctant parting from her petri-dish, s...
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52 Films by Women Vol 5. 24. ROMANTIC COMEDY (Director: Elizabeth Sankey)

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  ‘I am standing at the altar about to be married. Little do I know that the love of my life is racing towards the church on horseback. I am an advertising executive, and I fall for a charming man. Only he is also in advertising – a rival.’ OK. These are not exact quotes. However, they illustrate British musician turned film essayist Elizabeth Sankey’s voiceover at the start of Romantic Comedy , a consideration of the tropes of the one Hollywood genre aimed squarely at women. Her basic point is that, for all the contrivances and bad messages that they contain, ‘rom coms’ move us because they give us that most human connection, when two people who might otherwise not know each other, kiss. It is weird watching the movie during COVID-19 lockdown, when people are actively discouraged from meeting someone new. Social relationships are frozen in aspic, like ‘Dino DNA’ in Jurassic Park . I wonder if humans will remember how to socially interact after a vaccine for Coronavirus is found....
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52 Films by Women Vol 5. 23. PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE (Director: Céline Sciamma)

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  Contains spoilers In the course of this blog series, interrupted in terms of ‘proof of concept’ by the outbreak of COVID-19, I have been on the look-out for game changing movies from women directors, sometimes in terms of box-office success – the justification to allow women to make the movies that they want with the resources they need – but also in terms of artistic achievement. Writer-director C é line Sciamma’s Portrait d’une jeune fille en feu ( Portrait of a Lady on Fire ) is an example of the latter. Widely acclaimed in the build-up to its UK and US release in February 2020, when it was positioned as a Valentine’s Day movie, and winner of the best screenplay at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, beating Quentin Tarantino (well, who really is a fan of Once Upon A Time … in Hollywood ?) this French romantic drama is one of the few movies in this series that might be considered a classic – something to be talked about and referenced in years to come. It is a drama that reflec...
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52 Films by Women Vol 5. 22. THE ASSISTANT (Director: Kitty Green)

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  Getting into the film industry is tough. Unless you have a particularly sought-after technical skill, your appointment to an entry-level job is entirely based on potential. You will have a degree from an esteemed university, some internship experience. Ultimately, the hiring manager assesses you as if you were a casting choice without a showreel. You are put on probation. You do your best to show how committed you are – in first, out last. You order food. You distribute printed material. You unjam the Multi-Functional Device. You do the washing up. You talk to the driver. You process the $40 dry cleaning receipt. You get a paper cut opening an invitation from the White House. You face people whom you fear and give them unwelcome news. Then you have your values tested. You are expected to lie. You are expected not to notice. In her debut fictional feature film, The Assistant , writer-director Kitty Green, who helmed the documentaries Ukraine is not a Brothel and Casting JonBenet...
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52 Films by Women Vol 5. 21. THE REST OF US (Director: Aisling Chin-Yee)

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  Can you be friends with the woman who took your husband? That’s the question asked by the English-language Canadian family drama, The Rest of Us , written by Alanna Francis and directed by Aisling Chin-Yee. The title sounds like an apocalyptic shoot-em-up. However, the film is just a humane, adult slice of four female characters getting on in a big old house with a pool and a motorhome right outside. Heather Graham who appeared in hit movies such as Boogie Nights and Austin Powers – The Spy Who Shagged Me has the leading role of Cami, a middle-aged children’s author living in a nice house (with said pool) in North Lake, Ontario. Her teenage daughter, Aster (Sophie N é lisse, best known for The Book Thief ) is back home from college. At the start, Cami is checking into a hotel and making herself suitably alluring for someone. She mixes cocktails, puts on adult appropriate underwear and paints her toenails red. However, the stranger does not show up. Meanwhile, at home, the cat...
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