Sight&Sound - 05.2020

(Jacob Rumans) #1

56 | Sight&Sound | May 2020


MARK COUSINS WOMEN MAKE FILM

THE DAY I
BECAME A WOMAN
Marzieh Meshkini, Iran, 2000
This is the opening shot of
Iranian director Marzieh
Meshkini’s The Day I Became a
Woman (Roozi ke zan shodam).
Told in three sections, the first
part follows the last day of a girl’s


childhood. A stick in the sand
casts a shadow; when the shadow
is at its shortest, when the sun is
at its highest, the girl will enter
adulthood and, according to strict
tradition, must cover herself.
Meshkini’s opening scene, set in
the small coastal village where
she lives, brilliantly symbolises

the story. The sail here is like a
black chador. It half blocks the
horizon, just as the girl’s life will
be occluded by her covering. The
pole is like the stick in the sand,
it’s like the young girl. Lots of
films use their opening scenes
to set up their story, but this
image is a great movie overture.

THE GIRLS
Sumitra Peries, Sri Lanka, 1978
This image looks like a cut-out,
like lace, but it’s a frame grab
from one of the best films of the
1970s: The Girls (Gahanu lamai).
When we think of the 70s, The
Godfather (1972), The Exorcist
(1973), Taxi Driver (1976) come
to mind, but in Sri Lanka, around
the same time, Sumitra Peries


made a film about this young
woman enmeshed in her shyness
and in religion. Peries zooms in
and out like in a Robert Altman
or Nicolas Roeg film. She creates
dazzling images and uncertain
emotions. The director of If....
(1968) and Britannia Hospital
(1982), Lindsay Anderson, and the
critic David Robinson admired
her work. Why did we forget her?

CONCRETE NIGHT
Pirjo Honkasalo, Finland, 2013
Here you can see two naked
young men sunbathe in an
industrial setting in Finland.
It’s an image like a Fernand
Léger painting: the hard
metallic cranes and pipes,
the soft bodies. The film is
Concrete Night (Betoniyö), and
is directed by Pirjo Honkasalo.

She was a cinematographer,
and this image, shot by her
director of photography Peter
Flinckenberg, shows how
good she is at composition.
More than that, it shows that
filmmakers aren’t defined by or
limited to our own experiences.
Honkasalo is queer and female,
yet her film is one of the best
there is about young men.
Free download pdf