Films with a feminist angle

Just in case readers don't know now to access the English subtitles in Raise the Red Lantern (or any other youtube film) you click on the little cog wheel symbol on the lower right of the screen and select "English"

Film4 is Freeviw Channel 14

Mad Max - fury road.

To paraphrase at the end of world men want women to subvert back to their ‘natural’ place, ignoring that fact that women won’t want to.

Raise the Red Lantern

One of my all time favourite films, this is a masterpiece of cinema, a very bleak and harrowing film about sexual slavery, oppression, politics, the oppressive power of rituals and traditions, divide and conquer, and gaslighting.

The film is sumptuous and utterly beautiful, the use of colour is exquisite, the performances are breathtaking. Just don't expect a happy, clap, inspiring film it is utterly heartbreaking.

Mandarin language, with English subtitles it can be seen in all its glory on youtube below

There are no scenes of sex or nudity, but some distressing scenes so not siutable for children

Thanks Gasp0de

Now just to figure out how I get Film4

Heads up that Hidden Figures is on Film4 tonight at 9pm. (On Film4+1 therefore at 10pm.)

This one might be a little left field, but bear with me! I caught the 1955 Ealing comedy, The Ladykillers, on FilmFour the other afternoon. This is one of my all-time favourite films. Stellar performances from Alec Guinness, Herbert Lom, Peter Sellars, Cecil Parker and Danny Green as a gang of criminals, ably supported by Jack Warner and Frankie Howerd amongst others. But I feel the star of the show is 76yo Katie Johnson as Mrs Wilberforce, aka Mrs Lopsided. I don't want to spoil it for anyone who's never seen it so will say nothing about the plot, but let's just say Mrs W is a force to be reckoned with.

(Don't waste your time with the Coen Brothers' remake starring Tom Hanks. I love the Coen Brothers and Tom Hanks but it was abysmal. Why anybody would attempt to remake perfection beats me.)

Just want to +1 Grandma. Fab film and didn’t get anywhere near the publicity it deserves. Lily Tomlin is brilliant.

On Netflix
Unbelievable- warning it’s a tough watch involving rape but the 2 female detectives and exposure of rape myths is good

Just started watching Unorthodox about a young woman breaking out of repressive religion

Criminal

I have a very feminist 11 year old we’ve enjoyed
Question of Sex
Hidden Figures
Ghostbusters the second one
Oceans 8 - all female bank robbers though message is it’s great to be a crimso caveat that one !

I think The Help, as there aren't really that many men in it and they don't have very good roles. Just love interests and randoms. And Skeeter is under a lot of pressure to get married from her mother but chooses a better role model in the agent from New York.

Another vote for Hidden Figures. (It was on FilmFour the other night and that sometimes means it will be on again in a few days.) Those women achieved so much in the face of huge obstacles.

Chocolat - great female characters.

This is a comedy short- someone I’m subscribed to on YouTube right now. It’s a satire rap song written from the point of view of sexist men who reduce women to objects but performed by this female artist who’s like a kind of Cindy Sherman- she’s taking the piss out of objectification:

Teenage DD and I are watching a very long anime TV series called Mila Superstar, from around 1970. It's about a teenage girls' volleyball team. It's strong stuff. Dd is loving it. Available in various foreign languages.

“I am Tonya”

Bloody brilliant especially about being the wrong kind of poor - I see Tonyas all over the place now.

Ooh “Wild”

Terrific and it creeps up on you.
Quite challenging: “What if heroin taught me something? What if I wanted to sleep with all those me ?”

I would like to add the film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, directed by Martin McDonagh.

Also absolutely loved Hidden Figures, which was directed by Theo Melfi.

As a curved ball, JoJo Rabbit by Taiki Waititi is a daring film that deals with an extremely serious topic with fuzzy warmth, deep humanity and very, very dark humour - and it is a film with two strong female characters as key strands in the storyline.

3 billboards

Contact! So good.

Also not a film but I recently re watched Tenko from start to finish - now that's a forgotten gem. A whole raft of brilliant female actors and running the whole spectrum of ages, very few male cast members and all in minor roles, the whole thing centred entirely on the female experience and relationships between the women in that awful situation. Series 3 was the best of the lot.

Another vote for Wild, lovely and liberating film to watch and while it touches on themes such as the issues specific to a female travelling alone, so much of it just Reece Witherspoon alone, narrating and following the character's own emotional progress, fighting back from the crisis that caused her to take on the challenge. I'm saving the book for … well it had been the summer holiday, but now it will be whenever I get really, really desperate. Also another vote for The Secret Life of Bees, film and truly lovely book. All the main characters are strong women, the family is all women and women centred, and that community of women is enough.

Casting 'Fast Girls' out there - again the main characters all strong women, and the focus on the individual battles and successes of those women individually and as a team. I especially love the scene when four of them, Olympic runners, fail to placate a pushy bloke in a bar, he and mates chase them out onto the street, and the women in evening wear dresses with hair up, just take off their heels and leg it up the street leaving the men baffled and a long way behind.

Chalet Girl is another very sweet film with a feminist angle of a strong female lead character as a competitive snowboarder in the context of yes a rather sweet love interest but more centrally a female dominant friendship group and a female mentor.

In case no one has seen it or wants to record to watch again Hidden Numbers is on Film4 tonight.