A Girl’s Own Story (1984) by Jane Campion
Sunday, May 29, 1988, 8:00 pm
Sexism, Colonialism, Misrepresentation II
Guest curated by Berenice Reynaud and Yvonne Rainer
This second program presents two films which “depict how social practices construct women as ‘foreigners’ in a patriarchal world.” Jane Campion’s A Girl’s Own Story (Australia, 1984) is an impressionistic rendering of the alienation experienced by teenage girls at school and in their families. Ula Stockl’s The Sleep of Reason (West Germany, 1984) uses the myth of Medea, abandoned by Jason, to express the murderous ‘madness’ and despair of an Italian gynecologist discovering that her German husband is leaving her. Both films are narrative but involve more than an unexpected surrealistic twist.” (B.R.)