52 Films By Women: Girlfriends (1978)

The Criterion Channel

By Andrea Thompson

For our latest entry in films that were ahead of their time, we have Claudia Weill’s 1978 gem “Girlfriends.” In a sense at least. Any film that takes place in New York City during this particular era (or really any time before the early 2000s) is going to be a time capsule, and “Girlfriends” is very much that, with the quickest communication happening not just through landline (!) phones, but without any kind of voicemail or answering machine.

Plodding through this now strange and alien landscape is Susan Weinblatt (Melanie Mayron), an aspiring photographer who happily resides with her best friend and roommate Anne (Anne Munroe), an aspiring writer. At least, until Anne moves out to get married, leaving Susan feeling alone and betrayed. 

As the title promises, Susan and Anne’s close, intense, and rather symbiotic relationship is the film’s heart. It’s also the common thread in what is more accurately described as a series of episodes as Susan struggles to pay the bills and make a living as a photographer. 

That less than cohesive narrative works though, and to watch “Girlfriends” is to see a forerunner to the great pop culture womances, the most obvious being “Sex in the City” and Lena Dunham’s “Girls.” Its true heir, however, might just be the 2012 film “Frances Ha,” which saw the title character, played by Greta Gerwig, similarly flailing personally and professionally after her best friend marries. 

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And flail Susan does, screaming aloud out of sheer loneliness in her apartment, contemplating a relationship with an older, very married rabbi (who also has a son), and just dealing with the everyday sexism that includes a creepy cab driver, condescending men who have something to mansplain to her about her photos, and devastatingly, her own self-destructive tendencies that harm both Anne and Susan’s relationship with her boyfriend Eric (Christopher Guest).

The wedge between Susan and Anne is especially devastating though, and reflective of the starkly divergent, limited crossroads many women faced at the time-the often devastatingly lonely path of the independent career woman or losing themselves in marriage and motherhood. The growing distance between Susan and Anne reflects that dichotomy, with the former envying Anne’s stability and home, and the latter resentful of Susan’s independence and freedom. 

A bond like theirs may fray, but we all know it can’t be completely dissolved. When the two reconcile, as we know they will and must, it’s through the quiet familiarity of inside jokes and simply how they share space with each other, which wordlessly conveys the strength and deeply loving nature of a bond born of years of shared experiences.

When they are interrupted by the arrival of Susan’s husband, theirs is a shared look that speaks of a spell being broken. But just as Gerwig is able to gaze across the room at her platonic love and say, “She’s my best friend,” Susan and Anne have found their person again, and it’ll always be each other.

52 Films By Women: Fire (1996)

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By Andrea Thompson

To say that Deepa Mehta’s film caused a stir when it was released in her home country of India in 1996 is an understatement. It was the first mainstream film in the country to depict a lesbian relationship, and the response was explosive. Conservatives practically foamed at the mouth to denounce it, and crowds of protestors attacked theaters where it screened.

There was certainly much to provoke. “Fire” isn’t just a film about two women falling in love, it’s about the various ways women are exploited in a home environment which is enabled by the staunch traditionalism outside of it. Yet a few still manage to take their power back and find happiness, even as some remain complicit.

Conservatives, however, are very right to fear modernity, as Radha (Shabana Azmi) and Sita (Nandita Das) have a hell of a lot more choices than their cinematic predecessors. Much like the women who embrace queer love in “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” and “The Handmaiden,” they fall for each other not exactly because they identify as queer (which doesn’t seem like much of an option for them anyway), but rather, in the sense that they are able to find freedom and understanding only with each other in their stifling patriarchal surroundings. 

Sita and Radha actually have more in common with Carol and Therese of “Carol,” and Wil and Vivian of “Saving Face,” and it’s directly related to its more contemporary 90s setting. If their love stories have a common thread in settings hell-bent on heteronormativity, there are still far more options than the far too fleeting, isolated feminist utopia of “Portrait.” 

That said, Sita and Radha probably never would have connected if not for one of the most traditional structures in existence-marriage. Mere days into Sita’s arranged marriage with Jatin (Javed Jaffrey), she’s already feeling the pain of his cold indifference, exacerbated by the rigid expectations of her new home, where she is expected to serve not only her new husband, but his mute and paralyzed mother Biji (Kushal Rekhi), who is also subject to perverse exploitation by the family servant Mundu (Ranjit Chowdhry), but nevertheless rigidly helps to enforce conservative standards of behavior and dress.

Sita’s consolation is her older sister-in-law Radha, who is unable to bear children and likewise suffers from the emotional abuse doled out by her pious husband Ashok (Kulbhushan Kharbanda), who has fallen under the sway of a local religious leader and believes that desire is the root cause of all unhappiness. To prove his devotion to self-control, he has refused to have sex with Radha for 13 years, and whenever he feels the urge, has her lie motionless next to him while he refuses all touch.

It’s an excruciating way to live, and Radha has resigned herself to it until the younger, more rebellious Sita joins the household. Sita quickly realizes that her husband Jatin would much rather spend nights with his Chinese mistress Julie (Alice Poon), but her pain fades as she and Radha form a close friendship that quickly blossoms into a connection that’s as emotional as it is physical. And neither much bothers with what the men around them think. After they consummate their relationship, Radha is quick to reassure the more forward Sita that they’ve done nothing wrong, and they refuse to put a stop to their affair, which they’re essentially having in plain sight.

When they are discovered, as we know they will be sooner or later, “Fire” only reserves the last fifteen minutes to others’ reactions, and perhaps that might be the biggest insult of all to those who opposed this film and its empowering message. “Fire” never shies away from painful realities, but the emphasis is always on life, and the right to defy those who would try to deprive others of it. It’s a dangerous message for those who insist on adhering to a rigid code at the expense of all else, and that it involves a tender love story between two women might just represent the greatest threat of all.

52 Films By Women: Xena: Warrior Princess-Here She Comes...Miss Amphipolis (1997)

The Mary Sue

By Andrea Thompson

Note: Some spoilers ahead.

I’m cheating a bit for this week’s column, since I’m writing about a TV episode rather than a film. But hell, it’s Pride Month, “Pose” has recently ended, and the episode I’m focusing on was not only directed and written by women, it has a fantastic origin story.

But, as is habitual with me, I’m getting ahead of myself. Like many, I’ve turned to fun, light-hearted content during the pandemic, some new, some rediscovered. One example of the latter has been “Xena: Warrior Princess,” a show which I enjoyed whenever I could catch it (ah, life before streaming) and have likewise enjoyed revisiting. If you’re somehow unfamiliar with the premise, it was set in a fantasy version of ancient Greece and followed the titular character Xena, (Lucy Lawless) a former warlord who chose to fight for good in an effort to atone for her past. On her journey to redemption, she was aided by a farm girl named Gabrielle (Renée O'Connor), who became her conscience, friend, fellow warrior, and eventually, far more, even if it couldn’t become official canon at the time, although it was clear enough to the ardent fan base it garnered during its six season run from 1995 to 2001.

One episode in particular was one of those completely random watches I enjoyed as a teenager, and ended up being one of those childhood gems that’s even better once you can really appreciate what it was doing. Granted, there are many episodes of “Xena” that fit this description (and to be fair, some that don’t), but the one I’m singling out is the season two episode “Here She Comes...Miss Amphipolis,” which aired in 1997. 

As the title suggests, it revolves around a beauty pageant, but in typical Xena fashion, there are higher stakes than just determining a winner. A fragile peace has been in place in the unnamed setting for about a year, but that peace may soon be shattered. All three of the warlords who previously waged war on the battlefield are now basically fighting by proxy, with each having entered their respective girlfriends as contestants. Now someone has been attempting to not only sabotage each contestant’s chances of winning but do away with them completely, which would kick off another war.

Xena and Gabrielle aren’t shy about sharing their thoughts on beauty pageants and how degrading they can be, but as Xena points out, “War makes everyone a victim.” So she decides to pose as a contestant for the title of...Miss Known World (not making that up), with Gabrielle adopting another kind of disguise, complete with a hilarious accent, as her sponsor.

And what happens next is surprisingly complicated, far ahead of its time, and in many ways, our current time. But perhaps the biggest relief is how this episode avoids the most tired cliche of all - the “tough girl” struggling to perform traditional femininity. Xena sees no conflict between her warrior skills and the demands of a contestant, gamely donning a blonde wig and various costumes. She not only performs her part to perfection, she WORKS IT as a blonde bombshell. To her, it’s just another adventure, and this one happens to demand this particular set of skills, some no doubt inspired by Lawless, a former beauty queen herself. It’s what I refer to as the “Clueless” brand of satire, which maintains a respect for the characters they’re portraying even as they’re poking fun at them.

So it makes sense that the other contestants are far different from the “underdressed, over-developed bimbos” Xena was expecting. As the episode reminds us, all of them have seen the horrors of war up close, and it’s given them the kind of perspective that makes it impossible for them to take such frivolities seriously. As one contestant puts it, “You can’t know how stupid something like this seems when you’ve been through a war where it was a fight just to survive.” It’s what they stand to gain that get them invested in winning rather than the pageant itself, with one contestant being promised food for her village, another hoping to find another life far away from the trauma she’s endured, and one believing she has so little right to her own feelings she’s chosen to go along with her sponsor/boyfriend’s decision to enter her in the pageant.

Only one contestant is actually invested in the pageant itself, and that is Miss Artiphys, which is when the episode really gets interesting. Yes the name is pronounced artifice, and Xena quickly discovers they weren’t born a woman. In fact, Miss Artiphys was played by Karen Dior, a bisexual adult film star who was a female impersonator, then moved into more mainstream roles in the 90’s, and from what I could discover, apparently identified as a man rather than a trans woman. Given that information, I will use he pronouns when referring to Dior, and they when referring to the character of Miss Artiphys.

The character of Miss Artiphys not only isn’t a joke, but is treated with dignity. When they lock Xena in a steam room, it’s not out of a sense of competition, but out of fear that Xena will reveal their secret. As Miss Artiphys struggles to explain their reasons for joining the competition to Xena, they point out that Xena was born a woman and can take her identity for granted, while for them, “This is a chance to use a part of me most people usually laugh at or worse. The part I usually have to hide. Only here that part works for me.” Xena doesn’t pretend to fully understand, but she not only listens to Miss Artiphys, she refuses to out them and says, “May the best person win.”

How was such respect possible at a time when trans (or in this case, trans implied) characters were nonexistent, or when they were acknowledged, were generally treated as jokes at best, or violent killers at worst? That’s probably due to writer Chris Manheim, who was inspired to create the character of Miss Artiphys by her brother Keith Walsh, who apparently died of AIDS in 1992, and was also a regular drag performer. 

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For Miss Artiphys, the pageant is genuinely empowering, and it’s easy to see their arc as Manheim’s wish fulfillment for her brother. Miss Artiphys not only steals the show (no small achievement when you’re standing next to Lawless), they get the best moments. They not only appear onstage in Xena’s signature costume and proclaim, “Honey, I’m no princess. I’m a queen,” they also get to (spoiler!) win the pageant. All the other finalists proudly declare their agency and decide to drop out of a competition that’s based on their objectification, leaving Miss Artiphys as the winner to raucous applause and tears that were probably genuine on their part. 

Such dreams were rarely fulfilled in real life at the time. Karen Dior never found mainstream stardom and died of AIDS-related complications in 2004. Manheim had long been a prolific TV writer and continued to not only write but produce several “Xena” episodes, but her last IMDB credits is as a writer of an episode of “Monk” in 2004. This was also the last director credit for Marina Sargenti, who also directed the underrated 1990 horror film “Mirror Mirror.” 

No, pop culture as a whole wasn’t prepared to follow the example set by “Xena” at the time, even if Lucy Lawless and Renée O'Connor embraced their status as queer icons long before it became trendy or just good PR. Nevertheless, “Here She Comes... Miss Amphipolis” sums up the show’s legacy nicely, and in a fashion that much of the mainstream is still struggling to catch up to. Or as Xena herself quite simply puts it, “Beauty is beauty.” Indeed it is.

52 Films By Women: Tale of a Vampire (1992)

By Andrea Thompson

There are precious few films that would round out Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and be a fantastic watch on World Dracula Day, and that’s a shame. There should be more, and they should all be as fascinating as the 1992 film “Tale of a Vampire.”

It came out at an odd time. Seeing the world from the vampire’s perspective was still relatively new at the time. Sure, the book “Interview With the Vampire” was published in 1976, but the movie adaptation wouldn’t come out until 1994. Not that vampires stuck to the shadows in the meantime. They’d always been a part of cinema since its earliest days with “Nosferatu” in 1922 and maintained a steady screen presence since, mostly in slashers and general B movie fare. 

But the 1980s saw a large number of vampire movies that took the undead seriously, and that attitude carried over into the 90s, which saw the release of many films that would come to define the genre. The same year “Tale of a Vampire” crept onto screens, two hugely influential films that would come to define how vampires were depicted burst onto the screen with far more flash - Francis Ford Coppola’s “Dracula,” and the far more infamous “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” which would soon be eclipsed by the iconic (and now very problematic) series of the same name in 1997.

So it’s hardly surprising that “Tale of a Vampire” seems to have come and gone with little fanfare, or notice in general. Written and directed by Shimako Sato, she was less inspired by Anne Rice than Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Annabel Lee.” And “Tale” commits, both to Poe’s inherent undercurrent of dread and its bibliophilism, which it wears on its sleeve like a deranged, twisted heart, with much of the film’s plot taking place in a beautifully musty London library with texts that would make any book lover swoon.

Sato has become more known for her work in Japanese horror and the “Resident Evil” video games, but “Tale of a Vampire” was her directorial debut, which occurred after she left Japan to study film in London. According to Variety’s dismissive review of the film, “Tale” was shot over a mere four weeks on a relatively paltry budget of $375,000, and Sato almost seems to delight in her confines, fetishizing the city to a degree that is thrilling and exquisite. She doesn’t make use of the London atmosphere with its fog and shadows as create her own, infusing even the most brightly lit restaurants with unearthly dread.

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There’s a more conventional, love across the ages romance too of course, with vampire Alex (Julian Sands, in some of the creepiest work of his career) mourning his lost 19th century love as he returns to the library day after...I mean, night after night to research religious martyrs for his thesis. Ah the wonders and drawbacks of a pre-digital age. One day, he’s struck by a new hire, Anne (Suzanna Hamilton), who bears a remarkable resemblance to his lost love Virginia. 

Anne is mourning a loss of her own, and is dressed down to appear believably appealing rather than a lust object, but she still has (dare I say?) quirks like singing on her way to the cemetery at night to visit her recently departed love, reading palms, and conveniently for the film, the electricity at her place never seems to work, leaving her to make constant use of candles. No wonder Alex is quickly obsessed.

Make no mistake, obsession rather than love is what really sets the gears of “Tale of a Vampire” in motion. There’s no question that Alex is a monster rather than the gentle, sensitive loner he comes off as, and the movie is very aware of this. When Alex kills the victims he chooses at random, it’s violent, bloody, and painful for them as well as messy. How he drinks their blood is less like an elegant feeding than a clumsy attempt to drink liquid from an unwieldy jug. Even the lost love he mourns had a queasy beginning to say the least, since the film eventually reveals he met her as a young child, with their love blossoming when she became an adult.

If Alex has a redeeming quality, it’s that he seems very aware of how repulsive his needs and desires are, unlike his opponent Edgar (Kenneth Cranham), who cloaks his toxicity in righteousness. He bullies and manipulates Anne, and he confesses to consigning his wife to a fate worse than death because, as he puts it, “She dared to betray my high ideals. I had to punish her.” Shudder.

Like many a genre film directed by women, “Tale of a Vampire” is very aware of what a high price women tend to pay in struggles between powerful men, and the film ends by staying true to its coldly unblinking gaze. There’s no reassurance that good or even anyone’s better angels will triumph. Its lasting impression is that in the midst of so much darkness and toxicity, it isn’t love or any other lofty note of hope that lasts, but rather, pain.

Tale of a Vampire is streaming on Amazon.

52 Films By Women: Writing With Fire (2021)

By Andrea Thompson

I might be accused of bias in my appreciation for the remarkable documentary “Writing With Fire,” especially given that Film Girl Film is a Community Partner for it via the Milwaukee Film Festival, where it’s currently streaming.

But I had absolutely no problem enjoying “Writing With Fire” during my first viewing when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and audiences and jurors seemed to agree, with the doc winning both the Audience Award and a Special Jury Award for Impact for Change. 

The magnitude of just what directors Sushmit Ghosh and Rintu Thomas accomplish is partly a testament to the power of timing. They began following Khabar Lahariya, the only newspaper in India which is run entirely by women, just as they were shifting to digital, and more chillingly, as nationalism and religious extremism was rising to greater heights.

The pen is mightier than the sword it’s been said, and the power of the written, or for our modern context, the typed word is allowing the female journalists behind Khabar Lahariya to write their way out of a prison imposed on them by gender, tradition, and most suffocatingly, caste. Many, if not all, of the women are Dalits, or untouchables, who are entirely excluded from the caste system in India, and thus barred from participation in many aspects of life. Most have husbands and families who are less than supportive, and pressure them to quit working.

And yet they persist, to use a newish cliche, despite not only this opposition, but the fact that many of them have barely touched a smartphone, have never used email, and a few don’t even have electricity in their homes.  

Why they persist in the face of such obstacles isn’t exactly explored, but shown, as many experience a newfound sense of confidence in shaping not only their own destinies, but helping to change the lives of others for the better. And “Writing With Fire” wastes little time answering just what drives them, opening with chief reporter Meera interviewing a traumatized woman who has been repeatedly raped, then confronting police about why they have done virtually nothing to prevent these attacks or punish the perpetrators.

She and her colleagues also confront other powerful entrenched interests, such as mining groups running dangerous and illegal mining operations, and spotlight families who have yet to benefit from promised government reforms. And their efforts make a real difference, with rapists being arrested and charged, electricity and infrastructure being brought to some villages without it, and the women themselves outright refusing to be patronized by not only police and government officials, but male journalists.

Even as the profile of Khabar Lahariya begins to rise, with support, views, and impact increasing, the film also doesn’t-and can’t-ignore the other, more regressive forces that are also growing (partly thanks to populist support and social media), that of nationalist and religious extremists who are not only thriving, but winning elections. 

The questions the women routinely ask (and far too many media outlets don’t), such as why these men and their lackeys focus so much on protecting Hinduism rather than education, healthcare, and employment seem extremely prescient now given the horrifically botched response of many of India’s leaders to the COVID crisis (although they’re certainly not alone in that), and Meera and many of her colleagues clearly see journalism as a means to get answers and hold leaders accountable. This documentary might just be a part of that process for them, with the filmmakers being granted access to not just the end results, but the journey, which includes editorial meetings, work retreats, and the home lives of many subjects, where they must often continually justify themselves to husbands and parents.

Needless to say, none of these women are victims, but the directors also ensure that none of them fall into the Strong Female Character trope, with many freely admitting their weariness and even giving in to pressure occasionally and marrying to shield their families from the social consequences of having an unwed daughter.

If “Writing With Fire” leaves out many details, such as just how the paper was founded and the impetus behind it, what it does share is a testament to just what the journey to empowerment looks like, exhausting late nights and all.

52 Films By Women: Lingua Franca 2019

Lingua Franca

By Andrea Thompson

Urban isolation isn’t a new theme, but the protagonist of the tender drama “Lingua Franca” has a damn good reason to feel not just sequestered, but under siege. Olivia (Isabel Sandoval) is an undocumented Filipino transwoman living in Brighton Beach neighborhood in Brooklyn, and she is under constant threat of violence; not from any individual, but rather, an entire system built on her dehumanization. 

Watching it, I was reminded of a similar film, “The Garden Left Behind,” which in fact screened in the Film Girl Film Festival, and also followed an undocumented transwoman in New York City. But where Tina (Carlie Guevara) struggled to fathom individual intentions and their potential for harm, Olivia is facing far more sinister forces she is unable to predict, and which would deport her on a whim.

It is deportation rather than death which is Olivia’s ultimate fear, and Sandoval manages to capture the quiet terror of that word, one which is often, and very casually, tossed around by those who are wholly unaware of what it means for those it threatens to catch in its ever-widening maw. And Olivia is constantly aware that she could be literally snatched off the street at any moment with no consequences to her abductors. 

Even the tenuous stability she’s achieved perversely heightens her anxiety that it could all be taken from her. Unlike other transgender stories, Olivia has already transitioned, is mostly seen as a woman by the world at large, and has a mostly reliable source of income as the kind of caregiver we all wish could be looking after our loved ones. 

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But it can, and often does, feel like a razor’s edge to Olivia even at the best of times, and Isabel Sandoval, who writes and directs in addition to playing the lead, emphasizes this tension with muted colors even as the characters and extras array themselves in brightness, as if attempting to deny the darkness which threatens to envelop their lives. Even home barely serves as a refuge, with the unsettling silence in the most intimate of spaces stretching on just enough to leave us wondering if there’s a shadowy threat lurking just beyond our vision. Which for Olivia, there is, perhaps even in plain sight.

It can be difficult not to define such a character by her pain, and Sandoval, who is a trans woman herself, takes care not to make Olivia a symbol, even when Trump’s voice is heard as he encourages everyone to give in to their worst instincts, only to be cut off as Olivia reaches her destination. Such politics may play a role in her life, but neither the film or Olivia define themselves by them.

And it doesn’t stop Olivia from yearning for more, as we discover shortly after she meets Alex (Eamon Farren), the adult grandson of the elderly Russian woman Olivia looks after. The two have more in common than they initially appear, Alex hailing from an immigrant background himself, and also feeling lonely despite his so-called friends, who are mostly toxic bro types he is unable to confide in. Alex may project confidence, but he is vulnerable in a way men are never supposed to be, struggling to maintain his sobriety after a stint in rehab. His and Olivia’s eventual connection is more than a meeting of souls though, with Olivia not only having some hot and heavy fantasies shortly after meeting him, but the two actually having passionate sex that is actually pretty sexy.

It seems like the perfect way for Olivia to combine love and security rather than saving up for a green card marriage of convenience. But Alex also royally screws up, telling her that a masked intruder was responsible for her stolen belongings rather than his friend searching for easy money, increasing Olivia’s fears of deportation. 

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It’s especially cruel given how much Alex is privy to Olivia’s terror of the ICE, and when Alex does eventually propose, Sandoval cranks up the swooning music to romcom levels, underscoring how their life together is a fantasy. It seems strange for Olvia to hesitate at being offered what she’s basically been spending the entire film searching for, but as Sandolval said in an interview with The Cut, “At that moment, Olivia becomes more than a trans woman looking for love or an undocumented immigrant looking for papers...It’s Olivia’s journey toward agency and dignity and the ability to determine the course of her own life.” 

That taste of love leaves Olivia wondering if there isn’t something even better than she initially dreamed, and the film’s ending, which leaves her in an ambiguous state but committed to her own version of a happy ending, is nevertheless tinged with melancholy. Life will go on, “Lingua Franca” indicates, sometimes for no other reason than that’s what it does until it stops.

52 Films By Women: Suicide Kale (2016)

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By Andrea Thompson

Can be a groundbreaking and a little cliche at the same time? I’d say yes, because the indie film “Suicide Kale” embraces this inherent contradiction. Note that I say indie film, a label which has been somewhat co-opted by major studios, mostly as an excuse for an endless series of cutesy quirks which typically act as a sort of substitution for an actual plot. But “Suicide Kale” is very much an indie film, and was actually shot over the course of a few days at the home of one of the leads using natural light and equipment filmmakers already owned.

In other words? “Suicide Kale” was clearly a labor of love, and not just because it revolves around two couples, one five years married and other other a mere month into dating. The same old story? Most definitely. But cliches can also be something of a privilege only granted to a select few, and “Suicide Kale” is on one level about taking a story that has been almost exclusively set among straight white people and enacting it among queer women, three of four of whom are women of color. 

These women are also given all the depth and character they are seldom granted by straight filmmakers, and that this movie is even came to exist is due to close collaboration, both among the crew, most of whom were queer women, and the four lead actors, who also improvised additional dialogue. Nearly the entire film also takes place in the aforementioned donated home, director Carly Usdin’s wife is one of the film’s producers, and also takes on cinematography duties, doing a damn good job exploiting the natural beauty of Southern California to even greater perfection, and screenwriter Brittani Nichols also plays one of the leads. 

Nichols couldn’t be accused of lazy writing, since her character Jasmine and new girlfriend Penn (Lindsay Hicks) find themselves in a situation where there is no script when they head to the home of their married friends Billie (Jasika Nicole) and Jordan (Brianna Baker, also the house loaner) for a dinner party and discover a hidden suicide note. What’s a houseguest and friend to do? Head back into the kitchen and continue as usual? Certainly not talk openly and honestly about what they’ve found, as that would put something of a damper on the film’s comedic spirit. 

And “Suicide Kale” is very much a comedy, one that allows for plenty of darkness in a place so brightly bohemian and liberal that couples share their dog with another family out of fear of placing it in a toxic environment. Good gravy. 

Anyhow, anyone expecting the wit to flow long will be disappointed, as the dialogue has more in common with the stuff of mumblecore than your typical romcom. If the note’s author is a mystery, other things are clear enough, like the fact that ‘perfect couple’ Billie and Jordan are experiencing difficulties. Jasika Nicole is the film’s standout, revealing everything not through dialogue, which is unremarkable by choice, but through her tone, which becomes almost unbearably fraught whenever she’s alone with her wife, to her wide, fake smile as she casually reveals how her marriage has decayed. Your heart breaks for her, and for the complexity women like her are rarely allowed to portray on-screen.

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It’s revolutionary in its quiet way, as is (spoiler!) the lack of suicide in a film which not only consists of soley queer of characters, but is completely devoid of men. Bechdel test? Not needed here. If the film’s ending is also ambiguous, it packs more progress and general boldness in a mere 80 minutes than most films do in two hours, even managing to put the so-called healthy couple on ground that becomes nearly as shaky as the marriage which seems on the verge of shattering. Now that studios are supposedly hungry for diverse content, I’m hoping “Suicide Kale” isn’t a complete fluke, and that these kinds of stories will be told by a greater variety of people.

Suicide Kale is streaming on iTunes, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime, and Kanopy.

52 Films By Women: The Velvet Vampire (1971)

By Andrea Thompson

The 1971 film “The Velvet Vampire” couldn’t be called a good film exactly, but there’s a reason it’s achieved a kind of cult status. It’s a bizarre mishmash of art and classic slasher, and it’s the kind of movie to watch and appreciate for an artist working within their limitations.

And make no mistake, Stephanie Rothman is an artist, even if the industry refused to give her much of a chance to be one. She was given a job and mentored by one of the great kings of schlock horror, Roger Corman himself. But Rothman was forced to indulge a genre that was ultimately unsatisfying to her, and was never given a chance to break out of it and realize her true filmmaking ambitions once B-movies waned in popularity.

But in 1971, Rothman was fresh off her hit film “The Student Nurses,” and decided to make a vampire film that indulged and subverted the tropes audiences were so familiar with even by then. There’s the bewitching, very sexual lady vampire, the unease of a woman whose fears are dismissed, an isolated location, and even a creepy gas station attendant whose aloofness should have been a warning.

But this is the freewheeling 1970s California, the perfect time for a sexy vampire to meet a young married couple and invite them to her gorgeously stylish abode in...the desert? It seems a strangely inhospitable place for a vampire to call home, so I suppose said couple Lee (Michael Blodgett) and Susan Ritter (Sherry E. DeBoer) don’t have much reason to be suspicious when Diane LeFanu (Celeste Yarnall, also you gotta love the tribute to Carmilla author Sheridan Le Fanu) invites them to stay for the weekend. Susan has plenty of reason to be angry and jealous though, given her husband Lee’s clear attraction to Diane, and how Diane brazenly flirts with him right in front of her. 

It’s hardly the stuff of feminist films, but the motions of “The Velvet Vampire” are exactly that, motions. Susan may be a damsel who has to be saved twice in ten minutes, but it’s Diane who saves her each time, first in a dark mine and then from a rattlesnake when she’s lying out in the sun. Diane is drawn to each human around her, from her human servant Juan (Jerry Daniels), to the unfortunate mechanic who drives out to her place one night and the woman who comes in search of him, and of course, both halves of the newly arrived married couple, but it’s Susan she’s most open with and drawn to. And it’s Susan she saves for last in a bizarre twist on the Final Girl, pursuing her even when she flees to Los Angeles.

And while Diane is shown to have her own tragic layers, it’s Susan who goes through the most changes. She is objectified, appearing topless in many scenes, but so is Lee, and it’s in a naturalistic way as she’s lying in bed with her husband, and as she begins to fall more and more under Diane’s spell, she becomes more like a fetishized doll, ironically spending less time nude and clothed in a frilly pink negligee. Like many a B-movie film, color is everything, and much of the cast almost seems to take their cue from Susan, adorning themselves in various shades of pink shortly after she does.

But much like any good vampire film, red is the color of choice, from the various sources of lighting to Diane’s gorgeous outfits, and of course, the blood of her many victims, most of whom she loves to death like a classic female vampire, and which the trailer takes care to emphasize.

It’s a good thing Diane has style, because there’s not much else to vampires in this movie. Diane may be able to go out in the sun, but other than her thirst for blood, and later, as we discover, a fear of crosses, she doesn’t seem to get much out of being a vampire other than immortality. There’s no feats of strength or healing abilities, and she gets injured quite easily. 

She also isn’t much in the brains department, but then, neither is anyone else, because that’s not really the point of “The Velvet Vampire.” What it does emphasize amidst all the schlock, plot holes, and constraints that involve both budget and story, is women turning the tables on male entitlement. Diane takes advantage of those who see her as harmless, and Susan regularly pushes back against her husband and others who seek to use her for their own ends. They might resemble each other a little too well, and it’s probably why Diane pursues Susan so far, even to her death. Bent on indulging her thirst at costs, Diane once again loves to death, it’s just that this time it’s her own.

The Velvet Vampire is streaming on Tubi, Amazon Prime, and The Criterion Channel.