Movie Pick: Frozen River
Is there such a thing as a "female sensibility" in film? Certainly, there are male filmmakers and writers who are gifted at representing women on the screen.
Is there such a thing as a "female sensibility" in film? Certainly, there are male filmmakers and writers who are gifted at representing women on the screen. (Pedro Almodóvar is an oft-cited example.) It's the prerogative of the artist to represent humanity through different identities, to embody those of a different gender, age, race, class, etc., but is there something that only a woman can bring to the table?
I asked myself this question as I was watching Courtney Hunt's "Frozen River" at the opening of New Directors/New Films last spring. I felt that the story was undeniably estrogen-inspired, beyond the fact that there are two female leads. The film follows Lila, a Mohawk widow whose child is taken from her, and Ray, a single mother struggling to keep her family afloat. Out of necessity, the two partner in a smuggling operation that involves transporting illegal immigrants over a frozen river across the US/Canadian border. Ultimately, one makes a sacrifice for the other, despite their antagonistic relationship.
I don't think that all films by and about women evoke the distinctly female sensibility that I felt here.
1 Comment
Melissa Silverstein | August 4, 2008
I believe there are movies that have a female sensibility just like there are films with a male sensibility ie the current apte of Judd Apatow induced comedies. a guy would never have been even interested in telling the story of the those 2 women in Frozen River. That film not only had a female sensibility it had a feminist sensibility with is even rarer.