Yvonne Rainer's wonderfully discursive docu-fiction from 1990 begins with a narrow focus, then opens outward, accruing one weighty subject after another until it constitutes nothing less than a panorama of Western male oppression. It starts simply enough, with Rainer conducting real interviews with middle-aged female friends about their experiences during and after menopause. Soon, however, a fictional character also named Yvonne (Novella Nelson) replaces Rainer as interrogator, and sits down with Jenny (Alice Spivak), a former dancer who recalls her earliest days in 1960's New York City and her colorful neighbors (among them, a quarrelsome Puerto Rican couple and an irreverent lesbian). These characters, their back stories, inner thoughts and interactions are then depicted as a film within the film (within the overall film) which incorporates a number of Godardian flourishes to flesh out their world views. They include monologues, onscreen text that function as a running commentary, miniature psychodramas acted out on partially dressed film sets, and in the finale, footage of the cast interacting out of character at a wrap party. Despite the fanciful staging and the breadth and gravity of the topics broached - from aging, patriarchy, and sexual violence to the historical and psychoanalytical origins of racism - Rainer's cinematic collage retains a personal warmth and intimacy. Like a sprawling, all-night conversation between friends, the point does not seem to necessarily be solving the problems at hand, but simply expressing sentiments that are not often expressed because of taboos, systematic indifference, or worse, outright suppression. The women who participate appear to unburden themselves even as they recite scripted dialogue, and when they laugh and roll around with one another (as Yvonne and Jenny do in a memorable scene), it feels very real, and well overdue.
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