Women Filmmakers Refocusing

WOMEN FILMMAKERS REFOCUSING Jacqueline Levitin, Judith Plessis, and Valerie Raoul, eds. New York: Routledge, 2003, 496 pp. Women Filmmakers Refocusing is an extraordinary undertaking, one that underscores and brings context to film production by women. The primary objective of book is to explore efforts and histories of women working not only in West, but also in often-overlooked countries such as India, China, Malaysia, and former Eastern bloc. What began as a conference and series of screenings in Vancouver devoted to exploring state of women-in-film since inception of a feminist film theory, has evolved into a collection of theoretical articles, historical summaries, and interviews with women filmmakers. An article by Ann Kaplan opens book, with searching questions about impact of feminist film on makers and ideas. Kaplan concludes that the story of women, resistance, and filmmaking is far from over, (27) preparing reader for book's thirty-nine chapters that support and define this statement. The mantra of merging theory and inspires book's organization and its arguments. In part 1, an essay on Marguerite Duras and Agnes Varda provides perspective on historical import of these women and their influence on both avant-garde and feminist film practice. Following this discussion, book then places recent work of well-recognized Western filmmakers (Sally Potter, Chantal Akerman, Yvonne Rainer) in context of a feminist film politics that has evolved since 1970s. The author explores emergence of a cinefeminism, a theory and model that attempts to locate visible effect of twenty-five years of feminist film and practice on representation, visual pleasure, and narrative style. Though it is engaging and informative to learn more about lives and work of these filmmakers, and others from West such as Helma Sanders-Brahms and Margarethe von Trotta, book's strongest appeal is its second half, which focuses on work of women who not only cross political, cultural, and gender boundaries within their own countries, but are engaged in constant dialogue with complex, postcolonial experiences through their life and work. Particularly compelling is part 5, which explores film work of women in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In chapter 20, a discussion of Saikati (1992) and Battle of Sacred Tree (1994), two Kenyan post-independence films, draws attention to unique differences in technique and how both films take distinct, sometimes oppositional stands on sexuality, gender, and politics. This chapter introduces an engaging discussion of postcolonial struggles, such as conflict between modernity and tradition, urban and rural, and between representations of indigenous experience, as well as ideas about development of an African feminist framework. Another chapter in this section details a fascinating discussion with Chinese director Yue-Qing Yang about her documentary Nu Shu: A Hidden Language of Women in China (1999), which explores secret written and spoken language created and used by Chinese women, a language that was all but destroyed during Cultural Revolution. Part 6, National and Cultural Montages: Crossing Boundaries, continues exploration of postcolonial experience by focusing on work of women filmmakers with a connection to India. …

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