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A Year With Women: July 2015 in Films
Although I was gone for almost a whole week for San Diego Comic-Con (my third year in a row for work!), I managed to watch more new-to-me films in July than I have any other month this year. Most of those films, however, were short films (I will always go to bat for short films). I watched the films in the Twilight Storytellers competition (several of them were better than the films in the actual Twilight Saga film series), as well as all the films in Miu Miu’s Women’s Tales series. Both are available to watch for free online and both are well worth your time! That said, I also watched several films that have had a very large impact on cinema’s history, so I think the month balanced out. As always, the full list of what I watched is after the cut, as well as a few favorites.
Movie Quote of the Day – Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, 1975 (dir. Chantal Akerman)
Jeanne: You’re always reading, just like your father.
Sylvain: I know. You already told me. How did you meet my father?
Jeanne: Why do you ask that now?
Sylvain: I just read the word, “miracle,” and Aunt Fernande always said it was a miracle she met Jack.
Jeanne: Yes, he came in ’44 to liberate us. They tossed chewing gum and chocolates at us, and we threw flowers to them. I met your father after the Americans had left. I was living with my aunts, because my parents were dead. I went to the Bois de la Cambre with a girlfriend one Saturday. I don’t remember the weather. She knew him. You know who I mean. I’ve shown you her picture. So we began seeing each other. I was working as a billing clerk for horrible pay. Life with my aunts was dull. I didn’t feel like getting married, but it seemed to be “the thing to do,” as they say. My aunts kept saying, “He’s nice. He’s got money. He’ll make you happy.” But I still couldn’t decide. But I really wanted a life of my own, and a child. Then his business suddenly hit the rocks, so I married him. Things like that happened after the war. My aunts had changed their minds. They said a pretty girl like me could do better and find a man who’d give me a good life. They said he was ugly and so on, but I didn’t listen.
Sylvain: If he was ugly, did you want to make love with him?
Jeanne: Ugly or not, it wasn’t all that important. Besides, “making love,” as you call it, is merely a detail. And I had you. And he wasn’t as ugly as all that.
Sylvain: Would you want to remarry?
Jeanne: No. Get used to someone else?
Sylvain: I mean someone you love.
Jeanne: Oh, you know. . .
Sylvain: Well, if I were a woman, I could never make love with someone I wasn’t deeply in love with.
Jeanne: How could you know? You’re not a woman.