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Reckless & Royal

2/24/2019

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by Ana-Marija Bilandzija
There's a little blood and a lot of bitch fight in Yorgos Lanthimos’ period drama The Favourite. It's his least cryptic film yet, which earned him ten Academy Award nominations (the Oscars are tonight), and still stands out between easily-consumable movies like A Star is Born or Bohemian Rhapsody. Here's why you should watch it.
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It's the early 18th century, England is at war with France. Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) lacks a clear strategy, but she does have a childhood friend who basically runs the business for her: Lady Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz), always in control and so irreplaceable that she can do whatever she pleases. At least until the arrival of Abigail Hill (Emma Stone). A cousin of Sarah's who has fallen into poverty for family reasons, Abigail quickly succeeds in charming Sarah and in particular Anne, who soon grows extremely attached to Abigail, not only for cuddling her rabbits and telling her stories, but also as her object of desire. And here it starts getting messy – and amazingly interesting.

Women, as they are portrayed in Lanthimos' bizarre comedy, enact power very differently than men: soft in a way, with more empathy and less machismo, but also full of intrigue. Queen Anne being the weakest, but de facto most powerful woman of England, suffers gouty arthritis and terrible mood swings, if not a depression/borderline disorder. She goes from sweet and jiggling dancer to a pile of tears in just minutes, always relying on Sarah and Abigail for comfort, and obviously hating herself for it. She can't stand the choir's singing on a sunny day, screaming at them across the yard. She faints during a strategy announcement in front of her ministers and entourage. Anne is a mess. Olivia Colman offers a brilliant version of this mess. Her weepy voice, poor posture, the neediness oozing out of each of her pores. In an interview with German news magazine Der Spiegel, Colman said it “gives her great pleasure to bathe in feelings, if a role offers to do so.” It’s much harder for her, she continues, “to hide feelings.” She instantly fell in love with Yorgos Lanthimos' script: “It’s dirty, garish, a disrespectful approach. (...) I’d be crazy, had I rejected playing the part.” She put on some weight in order to resemble the Queen. It was worth it.

Queen Anne is hardly bearable at times, and still, both Sarah and Abigail fall for her. Or just for the power she holds? There's a lot of myth surrounding Queen Anne's love life, like having affairs with several women, as portrayed in this dreamy ménage-à-trois. What's factual, on the other hand, is her loss of 17 children. Lanthimos, who loves including animal references in his movies, placed 17 rabbits in golden cages right next to the Queen's four-poster-bed symbolizing each one of her tragic losses. In The Lobster (2015), his dark vision of love in times of expected togetherness, singles must choose which animal they will transform into if they don't find a mate in two weeks’ time. Dogtooth (2009) is a story of the horrors of family. The parents isolate their two teenage daughters from the outside world, teaching them cats are deadly creatures and that anything outside their yard is dangerous, driving emotional abuse to the extreme.
Social aberrations, mindless rituals and the loss of humanity run through all of Lanthimos' movies. He couldn't have chosen a better backdrop for this than the 18th-century-monarchy, it appears. Yet his first costume drama lacks some of the innocent pondering he dared to do in Alps or The Lobster. It's still dark, but the acting is more accessible, less Brecht and more Lynch.
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Emma Stone has been nominated as Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards 2019 (photo: Gadge Skidmore)
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Rachel Weisz too has been nominated as Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards 2019 (photo: Neil Grabowsky)
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Olivia Colman's outstanding performance might win her the Oscar 2019 in the category Best Actress (photo: edward)
Even though it's all about female power, making The Favourite was not per se a feminist act, the Greek director said in an interview with The Guardian: “I can’t pretend that I thought we need more women represented in a certain way, it was just an instinctive thing. I was interested in that which I hadn’t seen very often.”

The Favourite thrives off its strong female cast and witty dialogue. All characters experience a development, the only constant being Anne's unstableness. Thus the viewer's sympathies shift as the story moves on. Abigail doesn't turn out to be the innocent, well-educated and well-mannered girl in a maid's dress we meet in the beginning. Lady Sarah surprises by exhibiting humanly traits and sisterly love; her first impression as a cold and dominant quasi-regent in a striking black-and-white-gown thoroughly obscures this side of her.

It's not without reason this gem is nominated for Best Cinematography, Costume Design and Set Design, just to name three of the ten categories. Sandy Powell’s costumes hilariously mock court society:en wear gigantic wigs and pink rouge, the Queen and Lady Sarah discuss whether one could fix Anne's "badger" make up. She ends up crying – again. The choice of music deserves to be mentioned, too. The Classical music Lanthimos chose unfolds a horror no drones could ever create. Luc Ferrari’s Didascalies, for example, is a haunting heartbeat through the big halls of a lonely Queen – only one of the reasons why The Favourite should be watched in the theater. The other reason is Robbie Ryan's cinematography. It gives us plenty opportunity to dive into the scenery – his use of natural light, extreme-close-ups and moving camera – just to throw us back into the seat as spectators by using fisheye lenses, making it obvious that we're observing these bizarre happenings as flies on the wall. Or rabbits in a cage.
The Favorite has been nominated in ten categories at the Academy Awards 2019:

Best Original Screenplay
Best Achievement in Production Design
Best Achievement in Costume Design
Best Motion Picture of the Year
Best Achievement in Directing
Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
Best Achievement in Cinematography
Best Achievement in Film Editing
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Beyond the Beauty Standards

2/2/2019

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Special Double Review of Recha Jungmann's Renate 

By Christina Schultz and Romina Leiding 
It’s been a few months since the fabulous Frankfurter Frauen Film Tage and I don’t know about you, but I certainly miss attending the film screenings, listening to the inspiring talks, meeting the incredible organizers, guests and attendees and, perhaps most importantly, being included in a supportive community of film scholars, feminists and human rights activists. So I thought it only right to post a review of one of the films I saw at the festival that made a lasting impression on me; but this time, in the true spirit of the feminist movement - solidarity, empowerment, encouragement - this is not only my review, but a double review with one of the festival assistants, Romina Leiding, who I had the pleasure of getting to know during the festival.

We watched the film together in the theater, discussed it quite passionately after the screening, expressed interest in writing a double review and voilà!

Before reading our reviews, meet Romina...
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Romina Leiding is a board member of Kinophil [Cinephile], an organization dedicated to promoting and preserving film culture. Her main interests are the history of film and the societal aspect of film. Since receiving her degree in Germanic Studies and History at the University of Duisburg-Essen, she has been working freelance as an assistant director, for various film festivals (like Remake. Frankfurter Frauen Film Tage) and educational trips.
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We would like to warmly welcome her to our FemFilmFam! 

Christina’s Review of Renate

Renate is a short, intimate documentary of a young girl in love. That might sound harmless, and perhaps even slightly cliche, but the short film is anything but. Because of the time it was made (1968), the man she is in love with (the frontman of a famous rock band from England), the editing choices and the important role music plays, the film comes across more like a stream-of-consciousness, psychedelic music video. Again, this might sound like a rather groovy cinematic experience, but director Recha Jungmann includes some not-so-groovy images of the eponymous girl. To be more precise, the film made the audience members (myself and Romina included) uncomfortable due to the almost-pornographic close ups of 13-year-old Renate.

The camera quite literally caresses Renate’s corpulent prepubescent body and nothing is off limits. We see every part of her: from the scar on her knee, to her uneven teeth, to her folds of flesh, to her bouncing breasts and even her crotch. Perhaps it is meant to come across as charming and refreshingly real to audiences accustomed to seeing impeccably groomed, thin and attractive actresses like Charlotte Rampling, Audrey Hepburn, Mia Farrow and the like - a precursor to the body positivity movement?* - but it is hard not to feel uneasy as the images (and her breasts) bounce along. If I were Renate watching the film of my teenage self as an adult, I would be positively horrified. I was no Aphrodite myself and the mere thought of that kind of unabashed display of my body at age 13 is enough to make my body at age 33 shudder.

Therein might lie the genius of the film, however. Images like the ones seen in Renate are generally hidden because we are ashamed of them, unwilling to acknowledge that many, if not most bodies, including our own, are far from perfect. Instead of embracing our "imperfectness" and admitting that the beauty standards are harmful, we cover ourselves up, we buy pills, join gyms, drink shakes or even starve ourselves to try to be the someone we feel we need to be. The images in Jungmann’s film thus forces a confrontation with the self. Since our eyes have been trained to see slim, elegant, adult women on the screen, we cannot seem to hide our disgust when faced with the Renates of the world. But the Renates of the world are women like you and me: not a size zero with flawless skin, perfectly manicured nails and makeup and hair that is on fleek all day every day. And lest someone think I am skinny shaming, which for the record I am not, I want to clearly state that I am simply advocating for the fact that there are so many ways to define beautiful.

Renate the film, as a symbol for the trials and tribulations of womanhood, and Renate the physical subject of the film, painfully remind us that even chubby, pimply, awkward pubescents girls are beautiful and deserve to be seen. And what is more beautiful than that?
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Heartthrob and rock star Roger Daltrey circa late 60s (Pinterest)
Romina's Review of Renate

Renate is Frankfurt filmmaker Recha Jungmann’s first work in which she filmed her son’s nanny with a standard 8mm camera. ​
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Recha Jungmann (© Tabita Cargnel)
The viewer follows the camera’s gaze as it caresses the eponymous 13-year-old girl’s body like a lover, emphasizing her natural beauty by documenting every roll of fat on her stomach or every scar on her knee via meticulous editing and montage. The images are sexualized, without being pornographic, however. The film is somehow able to test the boundaries without overstepping them. But the 12-minute film is still highly puzzling, showing a 13-year-old girl in a way that makes the viewer ask: Can an underage girl be shown in this way?

Why? Mainly because of the (confusingly) playful way the pubescent female body eroticized. For example, Renate runs across a field sans bra, her ample bosom bouncing up and down. She lounges about, strikes poses and changes in front of the camera. The camera is deliberate, capturing highly intimate moments without being indiscrete. The viewer becomes a voyeur, observing the girl’s thighs, her stomach, back, eyes, nose, the lascivious mouth. Fascination and bewilderment, the archetypical features of curiosity according to Hungarian philosopher Georg Lukács, leave the viewer hanging on to the images. On the one side, the viewer is attracted to the imagery, on the other side outraged by the eroticization. From today’s perspective, the indignation one feels is so strong that one has to ask the question how the film would have been perceived during the 1960s, a time of sexual emancipation. This does not mean, however, that all of a sudden society accepted or underwent this turn. But parts of the population thought and lived more freely. Watching Renate today, the question of taboo immediately arises. Renate therefore gains an additional meaning that was unforeseen at the time of its making.

Yet Renate is still just a 13-year-old girl, as the popular media in the short film emphasizes. She cuddles and kisses a poster of Roger Daltrey and even reads a love letter she wrote to him in English. This part of the film, which exposes the viewer’s own teenage phase, is just as natural as the previous depiction of the body. However, the reference to popular media brings a new component when analyzing the film. Society, and in particular the vulnerable teenager, is bombarded with images of the rich and beautiful from film and television. In their infatuation for certain people, poses and styles, they naturally parody the society in which they live. Yet the teenagers’ exaggerated imitation of their idols appears comical or even embarrassing. Thus society as a whole is in need of some serious self-reflection.

Recha Jungmann said this film was not originally intended to be shown to audiences. This would explain the private and intimate nature captured in the film, as well as the home movie format of 8mm. It was thus coincidence that Renate was shown at a festival, where it was well received. All the observations here are simply interpretations, you can either take them or leave them. Recha Jungmann herself explained that she wanted to show the beauty of a girl's body that did not correspond to beauty standards and yet is fully aesthetic. The question still remains if a minor can be shown in this way. This is a point of contention that apparently has no resolution. But Recha Jungmann created her own resolution.
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