From patriarchy's violence to antisexism and sexual revolution

Το 1966 η Ιταλία συγκλονίστηκε από τη θαρραλέα προσπάθεια μιας γυναίκας να αμφισβητήσει τη μεταχείριση των θυμάτων βιασμού από τη χώρα της. Η Φράνκα Βιόλα έγινε η πρώτη Ιταλίδα που αρνήθηκε τον «αποκαταστατικό γάμο» -«matrimonio riparatore» στα ιταλικά- αφού είχε προηγηθεί η απαγωγή και ο βιασμός της. Αρνήθηκε κατηγορηματικά να παντρευτεί τον βιαστή της.
Η Βιόλα μεγάλωσε στο Αλκάμο της Σικελίας σε μια αγροτική οικογένεια. Το 1963, σε ηλικία 15 ετών, αρραβωνιάστηκε με τον Φιλίπο Μελόντια, τον 23χρονο ανιψιό μέλους της τοπικής μαφίας, αλλά μετά τη σύλληψη του Μελόντια για κλοπή, ο πατέρας της Βιόλα επέμενε να διακοπεί ο αρραβώνας, κάτι που έγινε. Στη συνέχεια ο Μελόντια έφυγε για τη Γερμανία.
Το 1965 η Βιόλα αρραβωνιάστηκε με έναν άλλον άντρα. Ο Μελόντια τότε είχε επιστρέψει στο Αλκάμο και προσπαθούσε ανεπιτυχώς να ξαναμπεί στη ζωή της Βιόλα και απειλούσε τόσο τον πατέρα της όσο και τον μνηστήρα της.
Τις πρώτες πρωινές ώρες της 26ης Δεκεμβρίου του 1965, ο Μελόντια και μια ομάδα 12 ένοπλων μπράβων του εισέβαλαν στο σπίτι της Βιόλα και την απήγαγαν χτυπώντας τη μητέρα της και παίρνοντας όμηρο και τον 8χρονο αδερφό της, τον Μαριάνο, ο οποίος αρνιόταν να αφήσει την αδερφή του.
Ο Μαριάνο αφέθηκε ελεύθερος λίγες ώρες αργότερα, αλλά η Φράνκα κρατήθηκε για 8 ημέρες στο σπίτι της αδερφής του Μελόντια (μια αγροικία στα περίχωρα της πόλης), όπου και βιάστηκε επανειλημμένα.
Ο Μελόντια της είπε τότε ότι θα αναγκαζόταν να τον παντρευτεί για να μη θεωρείται «άτιμη» γυναίκα, αλλά η Βιόλα απάντησε ότι δεν είχε καμία πρόθεση να τον παντρευτεί και, επιπλέον, ότι θα του έκανε μήνυση για απαγωγή και βιασμό.
Η δίκη είχε μεγάλη απήχηση καθώς η συμπεριφορά της Βιόλα συγκρουόταν με τις παραδοσιακές κοινωνικές συμπεριφορές στη Νότια Ιταλία, σύμφωνα με τις οποίες μια γυναίκα θα έχανε την τιμή της αν δεν παντρευόταν τον άντρα με τον οποίο έχασε την παρθενιά της.
Σύμφωνα με τον παραδοσιακό κοινωνικό κώδικα, αυτή η επιλογή της θα την έκανε «donna svergognata»: «γυναίκα χωρίς τιμή» -κυριολεκτικά: «αδιάντροπη γυναίκα»-, καθώς είχε χάσει την παρθενιά της χωρίς να παντρευτεί. Είναι αξιοσημείωτο ότι αυτές οι έννοιες δεν αφορούσαν αποκλειστικά στη Σικελία ή στις αγροτικές περιοχές.
Στον ιταλικό Ποινικό Κώδικα της εποχής αναφερόταν εμμέσως η εξίσωση του βιασμού με το αδίκημα της προσβολής της «δημόσιας ηθικής» και όχι με το αδίκημα κατά κάποιου προσώπου και επισημοποιούνταν ο θεσμός του «αποκαταστατικού γάμου», με τον οποίον όταν ένας βιαστής παντρευόταν το θύμα του, θα εξαφανιζόταν αυτόματα και το έγκλημά του.
Η δίκη έκανε αίσθηση στο Αλκάμο και όχι μόνο. Πλήθη συνέρρεαν σε συζητήσεις σχετικά με τη δίκη. Ο Mελόντια τελικά κρίθηκε ένοχος και καταδικάστηκε σε 11 χρόνια φυλάκιση (αργότερα με έφεση σε δέκα), με επτά από τους συνεργούς του να τιμωρούνται με τετραετή φυλάκιση. Το άρθρο του νόμου σύμφωνα με το οποίο ένας βιαστής μπορούσε να σβήσει το έγκλημά του αν παντρευόταν ο ίδιος το θύμα του δεν καταργήθηκε παρά μόλις το 1981.
Η σεξουαλική βία ορίστηκε ως έγκλημα εναντίον του ατόμου (αντί κατά της «δημόσιας ηθικής») μόλις το 1996. Ο Μελόντια αποφυλακίστηκε το 1976 και εξορίστηκε από τη Σικελία. Δολοφονήθηκε στη Μόντενα δύο χρόνια αργότερα.
Η Φράνκα Βιόλα παντρεύτηκε τον Τζουζέπε Ρουίζι τον Δεκέμβριο του 1968, όταν ήταν σχεδόν 21 ετών. Συμπαθούσαν ο ένας τον άλλον από μικροί. Ο Ρουίζι επέμενε ότι θα είχε παντρευόταν το κορίτσι που πάντα αγαπούσε παρά τις απειλές και τις φήμες, αλλά έπρεπε να κατέχει άδεια όπλου μετά την απόκτηση της άδειας γάμου, για να προστατεύει τον εαυτό του και τη μελλοντική σύζυγό του.
Τόσο ο Ιταλός Πρόεδρος Giuseppe Saragat όσο και ο Πάπας Παύλος VI εξέφρασαν δημόσια την εκτίμησή τους για το θάρρος της Φράνκα Βιόλα και την αλληλεγγύη τους προς το ζευγάρι. Η Βιόλα και ο Ρουίζι έκαναν τρία παιδιά (δύο γιους και μια κόρη). Η Φράνκα Βιόλα εξακολουθεί να ζει στο Αλκάμο με τον σύζυγό της.
Στην ιστορία αυτή βασίστηκε η ιταλική ταινία " La moglie la più bella" , του 1970, με την Ορνέλα Μούτι.

Two sisters, Karin (Ingrid Thulin) and Maria (Liv Ullmann) reunite with their sister, Agnes (Harriet Andersson), who is dying of cancer. Bergman focuses his energy less on constructing a traditional narrative trajectory, and more on exploring themes of mortality, sexuality, and class through a feminine lens.

There is no denying the genius of Bergman, who not only knew how to craft brilliant characters, but also knew how to visualize their psychological states. Some of the most enduring images from Viskningar och rop (Cries and Whispers) come from the maternal Anna (Kari Sylwan), who lays Agnes on her bare breast, and from Karin, who masturbates with a broken piece of glass.

http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2014/20-essential-feminist-films/

*Spoiler*


Η ταινία είναι βασισμένη στην ιστορία της Danguolė Rasalaitė μίας Λιθουανής κοπέλας που βρέθηκε εγκλωβισμένη στα δίκτυα κυκλώματος παιδικής πορνείας και απασχόλησε με την υπόθεσή της την Σουηδική κοινωνία.

Η 16χρονη Λίλια, εγκαταλελειμμένη από τη μητέρα της, μένει σε ένα άθλιο διαμέρισμα σε ρωσική κωμόπολη, γίνεται φίλη με έναν 11χρονο που ο μέθυσος πατέρας του έχει διώξει από το σπίτι. Η μητέρα δεν έχει καρδιά, αλλά είναι μια κοινωνία που συνθλίβεται από τη φτώχεια και την απόγνωση. Η Λίλια φεύγει για τη Σουηδία, ελπίζοντας σε ένα καλύτερο μέλλον, για να πέσει σε ένα αδίστακτο κύκλωμα πορνείας ανηλίκων. Ένα σκληρό πορτρέτο της ζωής στη Ρωσία της μετα-σοβιετικής εποχής, ιδωμένη μέσα από την οπτική των εφήβων. 5 μεγάλα βραβεία στα σουηδικά όσκαρ και ερμηνεία-αποκάλυψη από τη νεοφερμένη Οξάνα Ακινσίνα.

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The events in Lilya 4-Ever were taken directly from the life of Danguolė Rasalaitė, the girl whose experience with sex trafficking inspired the film. There was not a lot to be found about Danguolė and it turned out that Moodysson mostly made up the plot of Lilya 4-Ever.

https://necsus-ejms.org/problems-gendered-pov-shot-lilya-4-ever/

The issue of human trafficking is frequently represented in visual images on television and in cinema. These narratives often focus on the selling of young women into the sex industry. One of the most prominent productions on the subject is the Swedish film Lilya 4-Ever (2002). Written and directed by Lukas Moodysson, the film tells the story of a tough adolescent, Lilya. Abandoned by her mother and left to fend for herself, Lilya turns to prostitution in order to survive. She is later trafficked to Sweden. She eventually commits suicide. Set in an unnamed post-Soviet city, the film reflects the reality of the increase in trafficked women from this region since the collapse of the USSR. The article analyzes Moodysson's film as an important model for depicting trafficking. Specific focus is given to the way the director defines Lilya and her milieu and engages seriously with issues of globalization, poverty, post-Soviet realities, and the very real issue of human trafficking. Most notably, Moodysson's film offers a depiction of trafficking that eschews any sexual objectification of the film's protagonist and combines progressive filmmaking with a melodramatic narrative to create a film that inspires extra-diegetic activism. Lilya 4-Ever is an emotionally impactful narrative, a modern-day melodrama for the twenty-first century.

The Witch: A New England Folktale (sometimes stylized as The VVitch) is a great witchcraft film because it takes the traditional narrative of the genre and turns it around, showing the restrictive Christian faith that creates a life full of societal pressures and guilt for a young girl, and how delivering herself to evil might seem like a good escape to that.

Anya Taylor-Joy achieves a spectacular performance in the lead role, but really everything in The Witch seems calculated and executed to perfection. The cinematography uses shadows like very few recent films, the music is tense and unforgettable, and the whole cast gives everything to their roles… It’s one of the best films released this year, and it absolutely deserves a watch.

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Already, many label the coming-of-age journey of The Witch‘s female protagonist Thomasin as a feminist tale of empowerment. And indeed, Eggers’ story does appear to validate what your feminist history teacher has been saying all these years: fear of female power fueled the Salem witch trials. What killed all those women (and some men) was a patriarchal society that not only thought of women as the weaker gender but also saw their sexuality as literal dark magic. The Witch covers it all, setting Thomasin and her budding bosoms up for slaughter as the natural scapegoat for evil.

But something about the feminist interpretation of the film’s events feels amiss to me. So, when Eggers held a Q&A after a showing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music this past Saturday, I decided to ask him about it. Somehow, his answer only made the claims of empowerment even more intriguing.

Before we got to mine in the final moment of the Q&A, however, a man to my left asked the question on everyone’s mind. Would the director and talented, fresh-faced actress Anya Taylor-Joy consider Thomasin’s final resting place in Satan’s blood-soaked embrace a “happy” ending? Taylor-Joy answered: yes, because it was the first choice she really got to make. Yes, because it meant empowerment. Yes, because society left her no other option: if she went back to the plantation, she’d face the same accusations; and she couldn’t very well run a farm on her own with nothing but her dead family’s corpses for fertilizer.

Already, red flags were firing. How can Thomasin’s story be one of female empowerment when, as the final scenes imply, she chooses Satan because she literally has no other choice? If the story had painted her ultimate destiny as a clear decision between the life she lived with her family and dancing naked in the woods around a flame, that would be one thing. But Thomasin is no Carrie (of the Stephen King novel), who, despite ending up worse off in many ways, at least chose to be up there of her own volition.

I found the answer to this discontinuity once Eggers answered my question about what it had been like to write a movie about the fear of female power as a man. I asked the question for no other reason than I was genuinely curious about the challenges and insights that experience might have come with. Men, of course, can and have and will continue to write fascinating stories about female empowerment in horror. But, unarguably, a difference between Brian de Palma’s film adaptation of Carrie (1976) and Kimberly Peirce’s Carrie (2013) exists, for example—and it’s to do with much more than Hollywood’s declining artistic integrity.

To his credit, however, Eggers answered a difficult question with potentially catastrophic backlash with a careful (if somewhat fumbling) kind of honesty. Like many who get asked a sticky question they don’t have a semblance of a script to during press events, he clammed up, at first mumbling some vague PR response about consulting many different types of people with many different perspectives (in, I hate to say it, a somewhat eerie echo of Mitt Romney’s “binders full of women.”) Then he gave the honest answer: an equally awkward declaration of his loving and important relationship to his mom. Finally, Eggers gave the interesting and truest answer: “I didn’t set out to make a feminist empowerment narrative. But I learned that writing a witch story is kind of one and the same.”

The Witch, is a tale of empowerment, that can better be understood as a straightforward case study of the puritan woman’s dilemma. Because if nothing else, The Witch reminds us that, to a group of women who truly believed that eternal hell and divinity were real, inevitable destinations, sometimes your best chance at salvation was to turn to pure evil. While all other arms—including those of the ones you loved—are pushing you into the flames, Satan’s open up and welcome you.

But, really, you didn’t even need to be accused of witchcraft in order to live an inherently lesser and more sinful life in the eyes of the Lord you were supposed to worship blindly. Because, in the Puritan version of Christianity, woman has no true place among God: her faith is inherently less powerful than a man’s. Even though Genesis I (the older version of the ultimate origin story) describes man and woman as being made at the same time and both in the image of God, Genesis II (the Puritan preferred chapter) twists it a little differently. In that version, man is created in the image of God, while Eve, created from Adam’s rib and thus made in his image, is basically a notch above animals in the Eden totem pole. Thus women, Puritan’s believed, were more susceptible to the devil because their souls and bodies were inherently weaker. Simply put, men have a direct line to God. Meanwhile, women’s calls get patched through to a man first, then finally to God if the man vouches for her—but also if she’s unlucky, she could accidentally get transferred to the Satan hotline.

What would you do for a love as perfect as a fairytale? For Elaine, the ethereal and disturbed star of Anna Biller’s The Love Witch (2016) played by Samantha Robinson, the answer to that question would be: by any occultic means necessary.

She, like many little girls all around the world, grew up being fed the fantasy of the strong and capable Prince who would smite all the Princess’s demons and love her fiercely. In today’s society, this story is largely recognized as one produced by a patriarchal system which, through the use of the male gaze, limits women to damsels in distress worthy of pity and in dire need of a hyper-masculine male savior whose heroism would be rewarded with the damsel’s body and beauty. Anna Biller turns this concept on its head to affirm that in the same way men have fantasies of obtaining a beautiful, female prize, so do women themselves possess sensual fantasies and perceptions of love and romance.

Female fantasies do not exist outside of the influence of the male gaze in The Love Witch, rather it focuses on how women’s ideas of self and relationships, though there own, become twisted and mutated by the normalized stereotypical gender roles and desires of cis-gendered heterosexual men. This all sets the groundwork for the warped and misguided actions Elaine is more than willing to take – whether it be to drug a man so that he embraces her or concoct a witch bottle so that a deceased lover may always have a piece of her – if they bring her one step closer to finding the man of her psychedelic dreams.

When the audience is first introduced to Elaine, she has resumed her fervid search for love after the suspicious death of her ex-husband who she explains to others has merely “left” her. And she has now, in her own words, been reborn as a witch, equipped with a deeper and truer understanding of men thanks to the teachings of the Wiccan coven that took her in during her time of sorrow and redefined how she was meant to reflect her womanhood to the world.

This is where director and screenwriter Biller, who holds a total of ten credits on The Love Witch, offers a perception of men not bound by the flattery and forgiveness of the male gaze. The inherent nature of men is not the strong, resilient and dependable identity that has been historically favored by mainstream content, but rather a childlike existence so fragile that any refusal of their desires or assertion of power by a woman would shatter their reality thus disabling their ability to love.

How then does a woman on the hunt for a perfectly masculine male specimen to call her own manage to give and to get love?

https://jynarro.com/2020/10/30/feminist-film-analysis-the-love-witch/#:~:text=Female%20fantasies%20do%20not%20exist,of%20cis%2Dgendered%20heterosexual%20men.

‘The Red Shoes’ Remains A Haunting Masterpiece about the Pains of Female Ambition

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes is a hypnotic dead drop into the psyche of an ambitious ballerina who is ultimately confronted with a stark choice: either devote herself 100% to dance or keep her beloved husband content. While The Red Shoes uses heightened visuals and a fairy tale ballet to ratchet up the psychological tension, it still speaks to one of the issues that has dogged women for the past century. Can women have “it all?” Is it possible to attain greatness in an art or industry while also fulfilling the needs in your personal life?

The film’s tragic message feels particularly urgent once again in 2020, a time when many women are feeling pressure like never before to choose between their career and home life. While a facile reading of The Red Shoes might lead viewers to believe that women can’t have it all, the truth may be even more disturbing. The story of The Red Shoes suggests that a work/life balance can be achieved…as long as the jealousy of the men is sated. It’s not that women are incapable of having it all, but that the men in their life might not let them.

The Red Shoes stars dancer and actress Moira Shearer as Vicky Page, a London society girl with big dreams of being a ballet star. The ambitious girl has to work hard, though, to impress Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook) of her worth. After he catches her dancing perfectly to a sped up musical accompaniment of Swan Lake at a local theatre, he decides to give her a spot in his illustrious company. At the same time, Lermontov has taken the young composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring) under his wing after learning that his latest ballet was plagiarized by the upstart. In Europe, Lermontov asks Craster to rewrite a ballet based on the fairy tale of “The Red Shoes” for Vicky to star in.

The original Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, “The Red Shoes,” is a rebuke of vanity. In the tale, an adopted peasant girl gets her foster mother to purchase her decadently beautiful red shoes to replace her ratty old ones. Wearing the shoes not only bars her from entering church, where only black shoes were allowed, but invites a curse. Once she starts dancing in the shoes, she is doomed to never stop. It separates her from everyone she knows and marks her as a cautionary tale.

In the film, the story is transformed into a metaphor for Vicky’s ambition as a ballerina. Indeed, it seems to represents all ambition. Throughout the film, Lermentov makes it clear that he wants full control over his ballerinas. When the last prima donna leaves to get married, he makes a snide comment about her life choice in full earshot of Vicky. However, early in the film, Vicky is so single-focused on her career, she has no problems embracing the rigors of The Ballet of the Red Shoes or any of the pieces Lermentov tosses her way.

All that changes when it’s revealed that while Lermentov’s company has been touring Europe, Vicky has fallen in love with the composer Julian. After this, Lermentov flies into a rage and Vicky is forced with a decision: the ballet or Julian. She actually retires, to wed the rising star composer. But all the while, Julian’s best work, The Ballet of the Red Shoes, goes unperformed by Vicky or anyone else. Finally, Lermentov lures Vicky back to Europe to dance the role, but Julian is incensed with rage over what he sees is a betrayal. There’s a huge fight and Vicky chooses her art this time.


https://decider.com/2020/08/12/the-red-shoes-hbo-max-can-women-have-it-all/

Manuela (Cecilia Roth) lives in Madrid where she dedicates her life and career to providing for her son, Esteban (Eloy Azorín). When he is pronounced brain dead after a car accident, Manuela makes the difficult decision to donate his organs to patients in need of transplants. Realizing there is nothing left for her in Madrid, she returns to Barcelona in order to find her estranged husband and tell him about the son he never knew.

The second entry of Almodóvar’s unofficial “Brain Dead Trilogy,” Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother) ends with a fitting dedication that succinctly describes its purpose: “To all actresses who have played actresses, to all women who act, to men who act and become women, to all the people who want to be mothers… to my mother.”

The film is about the roles women are given in life and the roles that they craft for themselves. It is about a variety of women, from lesbian actresses and pregnant nuns to grieving mothers and transgender prostitutes, who rely on one another for guidance and direction.

Akerman examines the routine of Jeanne Dielman (Delphine Seyrig), a mother who cooks, cleans, and prostitutes herself in order to make a living for her and her son. Over the course of three days, Jeanne’s robotic routine slowly deteriorates, leading to all out chaos with one of her johns.

It is a film that relies on cinematic limitations: it limits your perspective by its lack of editing and lack of camera movement. The film uses its three and a half hour runtime to carefully construct and habituate the viewers to Jeanne’s routine, only to break it down on the second and third day (you wouldn’t believe how many audible gasps I heard when Jeanne forgot to put a lid on a jar, or when she forgot to button a button).

Akerman constructs a tragedy out of the mundane and creates a portrait of a woman who can neither be fetishized nor objectified. It is a bittersweet love letter to Akerman’s own mother, whose postwar anxiety is reflected in Akerman’s filmography.

One of Varda’s most successful films, Sans toit ni loi (Vagabond) is a docudrama that attempts to construct the life of an elusive drifter named Mona (Sandrine Bonnaire), who freezes to death in an empty field.

The film interviews of a slew of characters, who met and interacted (to some capacity) with Mona. Varda constructs a portrait of a woman who is walking toward her death, stripped bare of all her commodities and facing the unknown with no armor to protect her.