I've been re-watching some movies with women roles that had an impact on me in back in the 90s. One came out in 1991, the others in 1998. It always makes me cringe that so few movies had a woman as its main character. Not only that, I am fully aware that I just drew illustrations of four white able-bodied women. I still have a lot of work to do and I am grateful movies with a wider variety of perspectives are available.
What I liked as a young tween watching Terminator 2, aside from the big crush I had on the boy that played John Connor, was Sarah Connor's toughness. She is not the main character of the movie, but it was so unusual to see a woman not be the damsel in distress all the time. The violence made me wince, the visual effects were fascinating (thank you, all those "behind-the-scenes" featurettes!) and the cinematography, though I didn't know the word for it, was fantastic.
What attracted me most about the film Nō was that is was a comedy taking place during a very dark period in the history of Quebec. There was something cathartic about watching this fantastic and solid performance by Anne-Marie Cadieux. Regardless of your political opinions, the classic scene where she gets into a passionate conversation with the ambassador's wife about art, womanhood and identity, is a gem.
August 32nd on Earth is Denis Villeneuve's directorial debut. There are themes and visuals in the film that seem to be part of all his films: solitude, communicating vs silence, a search for some sense of meaning, the desert... I felt strongly about how the characters live their life, what mattered to them. I couldn't help but smile at how Montreal it felt when I watched it again recently and I can't wait to see Dune.
Run Lola Run blew my mind when it came out. Everything felt so cohesive and in sync with what the movie was trying to do. The story is fairly simple, a woman tries to find money to save her boyfriend's life. I remember sitting on the tip of my chair the whole time. She seemed not to care that everyone underestimated her strength, at least that's how I saw it, she was going to do everything she could to win.
