Female Film Critics 24/375
Danish writer/director Malou Reymann’s Unruly is a devasting film based on a corrective asylum that was set up for women in 1923 (and remained open until 1961) the Sprogø Women’s Institute. Although it was seen as a progressive place to foster “defective girls” until they are ready to be reintroduced into public life, it was in fact used as a warning for young women to remain morally acceptable in Danish society or face the consequences.
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When my AWFJ editor assigned me Danish writer/director Anna Sophie Hartmann’s Giraffe to review, she had no way of knowing that only two years ago my parents sold our 1800s family farm to developers, who summarily plowed it and all the hundred-year-old trees down to make way for a new development. Ever since, I’ve been musing about place, memory, and belonging. Those subjects are exactly what are examined in Hartmann’s film. Like most viewers, I suspect, I watched it with a strange mix of dread, melancholy, acceptance and hope.
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Lin Alluna’s documentary follows Greenlandic indigenous rights advocate AAju Peter as she reveals herself to viewers in authentic ways that are inspiring and engaging. She is, after all, just one woman, yet powerful enough to demand realignment and reconsideration of what roles we play in perpetuating colonial mentality. Peter said of herself, “We were born into straightjackets. In my own living, why am I continuing the mentality of straightjacket living?” Everyone could and should be asking the same question, as it relates to not only indigenous rights, but every aspect of how we exist together in society.
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Steeped in Jewish folklore and strengthened even further by a superb supporting cast, Attachment is a perfect example of a film that is precisely aware of its own sense of scale; never too big, never too small, it is the right size film, the right size story, the right size characters and the right size emotional and visceral punch to carry the film from its first frames right through to its last. With no need for the whistles and bells of some of the horror genre’s more bombastic offerings, Attachment is a captivating, confident and deeply moving little miracle of a film.
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Speak No Evil is a chilling Danish horror film programmed at Sundance 2022 that proves there is such a thing as being “too polite.” From writer and director Christian Tafdrup and co-writer Mads Tafdrup, Speak No Evil delivers satirically on cringe-worthy encounters to examine human nature through the horror lens.
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Breeders is a horror/thriller that asks us to examine how far we’ll go to feed our vanity. A ruthless businesswoman abducts a young women in a gruesome bio-hacking experiment to reverse the aging process. But when Mia goes to investigate, she finds herself trapped, branded, and tortured in an underground medical facility funded by her husband. Directed by a man and written by a woman, Breeders presents an interesting female perspective. Is looking young really all that important? Moreover, what do the pressures of wanting a child do to a woman?
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If we weren’t grounded at home because of a pandemic and if we hadn’t all become smitten with Stanley Tucci during our weekly trips to Italy with him, I might have just written off Food Club. But we are and we have, and you could do worse than spend an hour and a half with these middle-aged Danish gal pals as they drown their sorrows at a cooking retreat in Puglia.
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While not as famous as his fellow Danish auteur Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg has been making compelling and arguably more diverse movies than his more controversial colleague for thirty years. Starring Danish screen legend Mads Mikkelsen as Martin, Another Round is a sparky yet oddly melancholy comedy about men, masculinity and that old devil, booze.
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Danish director Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round is a film at war with itself. On the one hand, it warns against the negative effects and dire professional and personal consequences of daily, increasing alcohol consumption. On the other hand, it celebrates the joyful camaraderie and liberating abandon drinking brings. As alarming, the setup comes with a scientific overlay.
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Women directors exploring romantic relationships between grown women and boys is hardly new. While unarguably a part of this tradition, Danish filmmaker May el-Toukhy’s Queen of Hearts is a gut-wrenching and ethically confronting film that hinges on a woman lawyer called Anne whose job is to fight for the rights for abused children and young people. As we discover, this profession lies in uneasy proximity to her status as a sexual predator who has seduced her teenage stepson
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