Marshall and the Movies

If you’ve been paying attention to recent trends in cinema, you’ll note that this isn’t a particularly great time for women.   Oscar-nominated actress Jessica Chastain recently remarked, “the female characters, very rarely do they get to speak to another female character in a movie, and when they do it’s usually about a guy, not anything else. So they’re very male-centric, Hollywood films, in general.”

Five years after Kathryn Bigelow won Best Director, women still only direct less than 5% of studio releases and 10% of indie films.  Not to mention, they comprised only 14% of the lead roles in 2013.  And yet, women make up half the population and a slight majority of the cinematic viewing audience.  What gives?

If you are looking for a film that actually gives women the spotlight and attention they deserve, you ought to check out my pick for “F.I.L.M. of the Week,” Pedro Almodóvar’s “All About My Mother.”  This Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film boasts a female-centric ensemble probing all sorts of gender issues.  Almodóvar takes the time to give each character real humanity and inner life, two things which should sadly be a no-brainer for women in film (but often are not incorporated).

If you have the chance, be sure to familiarize yourself with “All About Eve” and “A Streetcar Named Desire” before dipping your toes in “All About My Mother.”  They certainly aren’t required to understand the film, but having some knowledge of them will unlock reservoirs of meaning beneath its surface.  Almodóvar engages audiences who enter with this cultural context in a very astutely observed conversation about the ways in which we internalize meaningful works of art.

Flowing from that, “All About My Mother” mainly concerns itself with the roles females play in society.  The film follows Cecilia Roth’s Manuela, a consummate matriarch mourning the tragic loss of her only son, as she brings and holds together a group of women all struggling with gender-related issues.  Pregnancy, cross-dressing, jealousy, suspicion … you name it, this film has it.  Almodóvar expertly juggles many characters and ideas, somehow managing to never drop a single one.  The experience feels nothing short of enlightening (and even 15 years later, still needs to make its way onto some Hollywood executives’ desks).