April at the movies

I am a proud feminist.

I know that the term is historically fraught and that it means many things to many different people. But I’m giving myself the liberty of self-applying the term in as brazen and general way as possible, mostly because it simply feels right.

(It’s also a bit of a non-brainer in a lot of ways: how can I not be a feminist? What is the alternative, exactly? Continuing to propagate the belief that women should be left in the kitchen? EXPLAIN IT TO ME, WORLD!)

For all that it’s perceived to be a perpetually angry, glum and fun-sucking worldview by the general populace even to this day – spot the scoffing comments on social media, some of them by women themselves, each time the ‘f-word’ pops up – I think it can also be a whole lot of fun.

A big part of feminism involves pointing out that the Emperor has no clothes (translation: that pompous men in positions of power and/or influence are often propped up by hot air and little else).

Which is a lot of fun, whichever way you slice it. And as it happens, we can do that right now, given some of this month’s blockbuster film releases.

The heavy-hitters of the season are set to be Marvel’s Captain America: Winter Soldier and Darren Aronofsky’s already contentious, Russel Crowe-starring Biblical epic Noah.

Noah – which also stars Anthony Hopkins, Jennifer Connelly, Emily Watson, Ray Winstone and Nick Nolte – has enjoyed press attention long before its Stateside release, after religious groups ‘tested’ negatively to an early screening, taking objection to its depiction of the story of the Flood.

Now, I’m not really an Aronofsky fan. Quite the contrary, I find the bulk of his output – that’s Requiem for a Dream (2000), The Wrestler (2008) and Black Swan (2010) – insufferably self-important, its lurid genre elements puffed up within an inch of their life so that the films can’t help but be anything but slices of expensive kitsch.

But when he goes big – as he did with The Fountain (2006) – he can be interesting, and this looks to be his biggest project yet. I’m expecting an unapologetically over-the-top epic that would make Charlton Heston proud.

Though ‘unapologetic’ may not be the right word, actually: in the wake of the righteous furore that the run up to the film has inspired, screenings will come with a placating caption which will aim to assure religiously hot-headed viewers that what you’re about to see should not, in fact, be taken as Scripture.

But though it may either triumph as an example of epic filmmaking done right or as a turgid mess coasting on conventiently interepreted Biblical events and a sizeable special effects budget, one thing is certain: big bearded men dominate this film, and between their strutting, shouting and punching to the background of crashing waves and general devastaton, it remains doubtful whether Connelly and Watson’s contributions will register as anything above the tokenistic.

Similarly, Captain America: The Winter Soldier – sequel to 2011 ‘The First Avenger’ though really, more directly a sequel to Marvel’s 2012 superhero mash-up Avengers Assemble – is essentially a jingoistic male fantasy. But if we’re going to be fair – I know it’s boring but let’s, just for a bit – Marvel Studios’ suave storytelling machine, with a heavy helping of successfully-employed tongue-in-cheek humour, managed to transform Steve Rogers-Captain America (Chris Evans) into something more than just a muscle-bound propaganda device for the film’s first outing.

And in the figure of the feisty, no-nonsense Agent Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) the film found at least one fully-fledged heroine to balance out the testosterone. But Carter is – ultimately, sadly – paid that compliment-that-isn’t-really-a-compliment: she’s a ‘strong’, ‘badass’ woman, essentially a man in make-up (I was going to say ‘a man in woman’s clothes’… but then I remembered she’s in unisex uniform for most of the time).

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of this crap. Is there any respite? Well, there might be. Read on…

Warning: here be women

Perhaps it’s telling that two out of three of these films never made it to our cinemas, but here are a few recent examples that may restore your faith in female representation in mainstream cinema.

Frances Ha

Penned by indie darling actress Greta Gerwig and directed by indie darling director Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale, The Fantastic Mr Fox) – the two collaborated on the Ben Stiller-starring character piece Greenberg (2010), and have since been a couple – this black-and-white dramedy veers dangerously close to presenting Gerwig’s titular heroine, a New York-based dance teacher who aspires to become a fully fledged dance director, as a ‘manic pixie dream girl’.

You know the cliché: pretty but flaky, well-read but all over the place… in other words: a charming f***-up. But coupled with Gerwig’s sensitive performance, the film doesn’t dwell on her cuteness too much, but allows her to unravel and be annoying at times too. But when she shines, she truly shines. I challenge you not to fall in love with her.

Blue Jasmine

When Cate Blanchett picked up her Best Actress Academy Award for taking on the titular role in Woody Allen’s latest comedy-drama about a Wall Street heiress whose life falls apart after her husband is convicted of financial fraud, she (rightly) rubbed it in the face of anyone who ever thought that films which put women at the centre stage “don’t sell”.

The film’s box office success aside, Blanchett deserves to be lauded for taking on a character that is both utterly reprehensible but at the same time, compulsively watchable. The fact that the rest of the film is rather thin – populated by two-dimensional supporting characters and a plot that relies too heavily on coincidences – is almost a blessing: it allows Blanchett to truly depict a three-dimensional – though troubled – character.

American Mary

Coming slightly out of left field, this revenge-horror outing gets a (feminist) twist of the knife at the hands of Canadian identical-twin writer-directors Jen and Sylvia Soska. A surgeon-in-training, Mary (played by Ginger Snaps cult-horror heroine Katharine Isabelle), grows fed up of the relentless abuse meted out by her male colleagues and decides to take matters into her own – dangerously skilled – hands.

The Soska Sisters are neither morally upstanding nor tasteful filmmakers, their style dictated by the same bloody, hyper-kinetic and cheap-as-chips aesthetic of a Robert Rodriguez (Machete). But though relentlessly lurid and not for the faint of heart, American Mary is also a big, fat (severed) middle finger to all horror films that depict women as victims by default.