Female Perversions (1997)

Please don't spend money on this.

People are voting emotionally.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

I have to say that my initial interest in watching this movie was for kicks but when I got more into the plot, I discovered that it could be a great film for describing the female Oedipus complex of women as defined in Psychoanalytic Theory. I thought it was a great film for students learning alternative approaches to female sexuality and Psychology. I would recommend this to any College teacher as a learning tool about Female Psychoanalysis, and Female Sexuality. The sexual material is a little strong but working with the sexuality from the perspective of observational research can be very helpful to enhance the storyline about the subject matter. It was a much more different approach to woman's sexuality than I have ever before experienced. Being a man, the main character is really looking at gender confusion in her life and their are some powerful archetypal images that are also presented in this film. I suspect Jung would have been amazed with this storyline, and Freud might have had a good example of what he calls the female Oedipus complex.

The title of this film is dangerously misleading because the film might be thought to be pornographic, and many people who might otherwise find it interesting will not see it. (The contrary is also the case, that all the wrong people will want to watch it because they are titillated by the title. They will also react with violent antipathy, in the wake of their disappointment. The choice of title seems to have been a deliberate act of provocation.) The German title, translated, is 'Fantasies of a Woman', which is rather milder. The film is a feminist essay, and the title is intended to be ironical, the 'female perversions' referred to being those imposed upon women by a conventional male-dominated society, so that for instance being a housewife is regarded as one type of 'female perversion'. It seems somehow natural that the wildly experimental Tilda Swinton would have to be in this film: indeed, how could she say no? How could such a film be made without her? She seems to be everywhere that people and films are pushing the envelope. As usual, she is breathtakingly brilliant. A surprising addition to the cast is Frances Fisher, who made such an impact as Angie, the red-headed waitress in the diner, in the intriguing television series 'Strange Luck' in 1995-6, at about this same time. Here she does some rather unnerving 'exotic dance' routines, which all goes to show something, I'm still trying to decide what, but whatever the reason for this is, she does it very well and one would think she had been a stripper or a showgirl all her life if one did not know she had instead been an actress. Tilda Swinton is electric here as a career gal who is so tense she might snap like a wire stretched too taut. She is about to be made a judge, God help us! (Many judges are crazy or weird anyway, but she would be more so than most, as the film makes all too clear.) Tilda Swinton portrays an extreme neurotic, and 'looking good' is essential to her, so she is always doing and re-doing her lipstick (an insecure woman's last refuge). She is a control freak and insanely superstitious. For instance, if she cannot wear her white suit for an interview with the Governor of California (not Arnie, a fictional one) for a judgeship, because it is 'lucky', she falls apart. Her kleptomaniac sister sees to it that she cannot wear the suit to the interview. Things are pretty tense like this throughout, and there are many fantasy elements to this film written, produced, and directed by women with women for women. I don't believe this film can really be excused by a 'women searching for their identities' justification, and if one approaches it earnestly from that angle (which may have been the earnest intention of the makers, for all I know), it is a failure which verges on parody sometimes, and has pretentious aspects. The merits of the film are different, and concern the intensity of portrayal and the mysterious depths of character revealed, especially of hidden or suppressed motivations. The lesbian aspects of the film are not central, but merely a part of the evolving self-realization of Tilda Swinton's character. I am firmly convinced that men can never understand women and women can never understand men. I first came to realize this in my teens when the novelist Pearl Buck said to me that 'men and women are completely different species and can never hope to understand one another'. That shocked me a lot, I never forgot it, and it has been repeatedly verified. I have now come to the conclusion that Nature has designed things this way. The imperative of Nature is the propagation of the species. If men and women understood each other, that would get in the way of propagation, and many fewer babies would be born. Consequently, evolutionary pressures have seen to it that this can never happen, in order to safeguard the future of the species. That is why men like myself who do not regard women as inferior beings (as many of my gender definitely do) are so intrigued by 'the mystery of women' and interested to see attempts to make films like this one where women contemplate women and try to understand themselves. It is true that there are no admirable characters on offer here, and that they are all pretty horrible people. Nevertheless, this film manages to be fascinating, although it is understandable that it would cause a lot of contradictory reactions, some of them violently opposed to it, and some admiring and appreciative. If we want films to punch us in the ribs instead of putting us to sleep, this one certainly qualifies. This is what is called 'independent film making', and long may it continue.

I saw this movie on a rented DVD in 2008. It is really bad, first of all they should sue the microphone guy for letting the micro appear so much into the picture of the movie (I never saw that happening before in any of the movies I have seen.....), and the director for such a lack of diligence and professionalism. If that kind of thing is let to happen, what can be said of the efforts input in other parts of the movie???Streitfeld seems to try to improvise herself as Lynch in some scenes (in the house with the 3 women and the girl) but it is not a success at all...Yes, if you see that movie you will see Swinton naked. But I am not sure that it is really an attraction... the former model playing the new attorney in the movie would have been a much safer bet.

I find it interesting that only one or two of the 17 comments here are by women. I'm not sure whether that reflects the proportions of those who saw the movie - or merely those who were (generally) irritated enough to comment on it. The movie is confused. **** SPOILERS **** Very early on, we hear a ludicrous argument by the protagonist in court, one that would provoke laughter in any courtroom, yet there are only sober gazes in response. Why? No one would ever say "We must smash him, crush him" etc. unless they wanted to torpedo any sympathy toward their client. The argument is so funny - yet no one laughs. Why? Later, we hear the protagonist's partner's assessment that the protagonist is a "killer" and therefore a desired judicial appointee. The viewer laughs again - we've seen how poor a lawyer the protagonist is (though briefly) and the idea that the "killer" nature of the lawyer in a civil suit would somehow cause anyone to predict how she would be as a criminal judge - is again ludicrous. (Later, we learn that the Governor is so FAR from eliciting hard-line responses from his potential judicial nominee, that he happily talks about the joy of his five daughters!). So, the viewer assumes we are meant to believe that the protagonist and her partner are deluded in their assessments of legal realities - yet we learn nothing further to confirm the protagonist is a poor lawyer and the partner a deluded man. Why? We see some bizarre store in which only a few articles hang on hangers -and in which old men sit in the lingerie section watching women who parade in front of him (and the mirror). Why are old men allowed to sit there? And again, since the protagonist is an extremely thin woman, when she asks time and again whether the garment is too small - and hears voices telling her she's fat - we are again distanced from the protagonist's sense of reality. We can't trust what she believes about anything later in the movie. We see a sweet and charming new associate interviewing at the firm - however she speaks negatively about the new lipstick she (and the protagonist) have bought - and has therefore brought down the enduring deep loathing and profanity of the protagonist. This is rather funny since lipstick color is perhaps one of the least important decisions in anyone's life. So, of course it distances us from the hating protagonist - yet why should the movie so want us to be distanced from the protagonist? To see her as a foul-mouthed, promiscuous, person easily roused to hatred by superficialities, who has deluded views of reality? A running and repetitious home movie is seen of a woman acting sexually aggressively with a man who wants to read. He finally pushes her away - she falls. I've no idea what this is supposed to represent. (E.g., imagine the aggression taking place on the man's part - his wife wants to read, he undresses, pushes himself upon her - she finally pushes him away, he falls. What would we be supposed to be making of that?). The movie can't be asking us to condemn the man since he was rather obviously showing a lack of interest and the woman was the aggressor - yet the protagonist says "yet I want up to my father" after her mom had fallen. Yes, so? Would she not have gone to her mother if the situation were reversed and the father had been the aggressor climbing upon a mother who had shown she wanted no part of sex that night? What are we supposed to make of this?We are informed by one unstable character that the reason for her persistent crimes is sexual thrill. Yet of course all criminals get sexual thrills from their defiance of society and morality. E.g., think of Leopold and Loeb and the use Hitchcock made of this in "Rope". Yet somehow the protagonist (about to be named a judge!) has never heard of this - and dismisses the citations from psychological treatises read by the criminal. Again, it distances us from the protagonist - why this ignorance? There's certainly nothing related to gender about this. Ask any teenage delinquent of either gender who has stolen something from a store -- or another child -- whether it was thrilling - sure. Crimes are almost always thrilling - so? And what are we to make of the protagonist's ignorance about this?We are shown several scenes establishing a sexual relationship between two women (the protagonist and the psychiatrist). The protagonist has instigated the relationship. After staying through the night, at one point, the psychiatrist leaves the protagonist's home to go somewhere. In the last scene between the two women, the psychiatrist says she wants a different kind of relationship. In what way? We have no idea. The psychiatrist doesn't offer and the protagonist doesn't ask. The music tells us that this is somehow a bad thing - but why?We see a mother (divorced? widowed? never married? We never know - and it would have helped to know) who designs and sells wedding dresses -- she becomes disappointed that her recent relationship has soured. But we know so little of her that we don't know why the relationship has really ended - the cited argument is far too slight to end a relationship that had so progressed that the mother anticipated a proposal - or why this should be important.There are just bizarre instances of human behavior throughout the movie - i) middle aged sisters sharing baths and beds, ii) kleptomaniacs throwing in garbage cans, the object of their theft in full view of the store (but only sometimes - we don't know why she kept some articles and tossed others), iii) absolute rage at having to spend just a few nights in a rural jail despite knowledge of criminal guilt, iv) middle aged lawyers wearing short skirts who continue to sit with their legs over the chair arm -- while engaged in conversation with the partner, v) prospective appointees to the appellate bench who care more about wearing their "lucky suit" than anything else in life, vi) drunken revels by whole office staffs in state office building lobbies, vii) adolescent girls who slash with a razor at clothing everywhere they find it, viii) crazed lawyers sending flowers to themselves with non-romantic notes of congratulation so it can be found by their secretaries, ix) purportedly successful lawyers being able to drop all other matters in an instant to handle their sister's larceny case.The resemblance to real life is zero - but what are we to make of this? We don't know. Incidentally, I'm pretty sure that's reporter, author, editor Bob Woodward playing the Governor - why isn't he or anyone else listed in the credits in the part? Did he wants his name withdrawn? **** SPOILERS END **** The movie is just a mess. I watched it because several actresses I like (Sillas, Porizkova, Madigan, Robins, Cross) were in it. And the acting was fine (particularly a very unusual turn by Frances Fisher) but you'll find yourself resisting a fast-forward throughout the movie. When the mess ends, it's a relief. Better luck to these actresses next time.