the infinite circle of women’s struggle

NETFLIX – ON DEMAND – DOCUMENTARY

The idea that Johanna Demetrakas had is quite pretty: for her documentary Feminists. What Were They Thinking? (which could be translated as “Feminists. What did they imagine? »), the director spoke, some forty-five years later, with women whom Cynthia MacAdams had photographed for her book Emergence (Macmillan, 1977). Among these – where we come across great names in historical feminism: authors, artists and musicians in particular –, some have a twinge in the heart (sometimes translated into a joke) on rediscovering this book and noting the years that have passed but they wear beautifully.

On these black and white shots whose strength bursts, nudity is frequent, both natural and political. Marcy Vaj watches herself play the violin in the simplest device: “I see myself above all listening to my inner voice”, she comments. A whole era… But what an era! The stories of the years of struggle are varied: from the elementary power of saying no to the intruders (this ” Nope ” which Jane Fonda says she knows “for only ten years that he constitutes a complete sentence…”) to the traumatic experiences of illegal abortions, like the three that the photographer Aloma Ichinose had to undergo, in Mexico, in terrible conditions.

The psychotherapist Phyllis Cheslerauthor of the famous women and madness (1972, translation published in 1975 by Payot with a preface by Hélène Cixous), and the visual artist Judy Chicago take longer than others. In 1974 and 1980, the documentary filmmaker had also devoted two films to the latter, in particular about her installation The Dinner Party (1974-1979).

Bitter observation

One hears bittersweet remarks about priests and their moral power; young director Wendy JN Lee – who, along with a few others, is not part of the generation photographed by Cynthia MacAdams – recalls how an attempt was made to give an award due to her to one of her actors rather than her …

For composer and performer Laurie Anderson, “there is something fundamentally non-aggressive about women […], who have the gift of understanding the world not as a great narrative arch but as a fabric where everything is intertwined. » Lesbian and/or Afro-American women talk about their difference and their struggles. But without pillorying the dominant white male. Moreover, their humor is sometimes a sharper weapon: “The only ones who claim to be feminists among my friends, said Wendy JN Leeare the men, because it makes them look cool…”

The strength of this documentary, released in 2018, is largely due to the bitter observation made by these women, some of whom had just taken to the streets in 2017, a “pussy hat” on the head, in protest against the sexist, vulgar and intolerable remarks by Donald Trump. Today, the film takes on a twilight hue as a decision by the United States Supreme Court has just been go back to the famous Roe stop vs. wade which had guaranteed the right to abortion since 1973. Because, as Johanna Demetrakas says at the start of her film, “these images remind us that this challenge is still relevant”.

Feminists. What Were They Thinking? documentary by Johanna Demetrakas (EU, 2018, 86 min) .

Renaud Machart