Film About a Woman Who...

Director: Yvonne Rainer

1974 / 90min / DCP

Picking up where Lives of Performers left off, Rainer’s second, landmark feature tells the story of a woman whose sexual dissatisfaction masks an enormous anger, with Rainer needling at questions raised by contemporary feminism about the relationship between the representation of romantic clichés and sexual repression. Borrowing techniques from soap opera, the formally fractured yet exuberant Film About a Woman Who… combines voiceover, intertitles, simulated “still” images, and dinner-table discussions to provocative, often contradictory effect. Long silences and Babette Mangolte’s fluid black-and-white images only heighten the darting, doubt-ridden, highly dislocating drama.