chez elles

A Taiwanese lesbian drama film. Pretty original and simple as well. More about a platonic love that finds a lot of obstacles to happen, so those looking for girl on girl action, will most likely be disappointed. Not that great, but I liked it a lot.

Søndagsengler (The Other Side of Sunday), but not that great. Lost and Delirious, but not that tragic. Love Sick (Legaturi bolnavicioase), but not that complex. Also, a little bit of Loving Annabelle and all the movie it has behind.

A women's religious seminary. A silly (or dumb) and an apparently nice (that later turns out against them) roommates. A good, intelligent and religious daughter of an ultra orthodox rabbi and a cool and rebel rich (that obviously smokes!) girl that comes from France. They get close and end up falling in love. The religious one becomes "openly" and her faith begins to change. The cool girl turns out to be the most traditional as possible.

Don´t ask me how the girl that had to beg her father to allow her one year to study and not get married, suddenly decides she won´t get marry and rent an appartment in downtown. With which money once she doesn´t work? Maybe she got an inehitance, yeah. Things that we see only in movies...
Well, well, but it´s always a plasure to watch Fanny Ardant, beautiful as ever.

The typical beautiful, sexy and mean teenager girl that all boys want to sleep with and that girls hate for being a bitchy.

A beautiful skinny kid look-a-like outsider girl and her dumb and over weight (of course!) friend. The "friendship redemption" at the end. The swimming-pool first representing unbreathing situations, always enclosed into the fake and hard world of the synchronized swimming, turns out to bring some relief at the end of the film, showed in all its large extension for the first time . Marie washing her mouth in the swimming-pool afetr kissing Floriane was one of the strongest and significative scenes.



All the expected, but pretty good as well. Fucking Åmål (which I think it´s superior) without parents intervention, judgements and a "happy" end.

This is an erotic documentary that got a few awards in the Melbourne Underground Film Festival and that shows in a sweet and very erotic way the love between two common women - common in the meanning of not being like The L Word´s characters, for example, what is a positive point of reality. For what I read, it was very well acclaimed, but it just didn´t work for me. I didn´t like it and it didn´t really touch me.

Filmically speaking, this movie is terrible: bad music, some very bad acting, the gay friend cliché, etc. It seems a homemade film, but you can feel it was made with passion. Also it´s easy to be connected with the characters and the daughters´reaction is very realistic.

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A enjoyable and sensual watching with visible fake blood, some exaggerated interpretation and all the kitsch a B movie type can offer.
Different from what you would expect of any vampyre movie, in Vampyros Lesbos most scenes are in a sunny and paradisiac outside and the plot is insteresting, playing with "reality" and imagination.


*Soledad Miranda was terrific beautiful.

If the subject is pianists, women, desire, passion and madness, I choose (and recommend) La tourneuse de pages aka The Page Turner.

Very disappointing, even if the disappointment was expected.

Problematic strangers that briefly meet, easy sex took by could be-why not 'love', nice soundtrack, a few beautiful shots. With te exception of The Lovers of the Arctic Circle, Medem's movies tend to be nothing much but a supposed artisitc, intellectual porn.

What to say about The Kids Are All Right?
Some good moments, but couldn't see any sophistication or humour. It's a high concept movie wich only difference is to bring a lesbian couple as the apparently perfect family: the father-provider (Nic), who works hard and always get the bad part (the boring parent), the free spirit, lovely but bored housewife (Jules), the beautiful and nice kids. It's interesting how the "bio-dad" figure is brought to the story and all its consequences, but it could've been better explored and not fall into common sense.

All the structure family is about to ruin with Paul. He's a cool guy and is doing "his" role quite well being present and giving confidence to both Laser and Joni. In any moment they wonder what all that means, except for Nic. They only see themselves as a (close) family again when Paul fucks up. And when that happens, all the fault is put over him. Joni says she just wished that he could've been better. Wouldn't it be more sensate and logical to expect that Jules, her mother, could've been better and not him? Jules has all excuses (marriage is hard, she didn't feel appreciate) and in the end is nothing but the common "it's all men's fault" (easy sex, immaturity, the family destroyer).

Paul basically says Jules she's talented and agrees with all she does and that is enough to make her feel appreciated. Ok, it can happen, but we could understand it if it was with a woman. Lesbians don't have such fantasies. Bisexual women do. Is human sexuality complicated? Oh, please! Not to mention the typical (and tiresome) "male-wild" sex scenes.

"Des parents pas comme les autres" talks about the problems and conflicts of same-sex parents in a realistic and intelligent way.
It 'd need some adjusts but, in fact, it's quite good for a movie made for tv.

"Because we're not interested in having, but in being".

A very good classic lesbian film with that typical corny background music like most films from that time (it's from 1979), but with beautiful scenes and an important and stil actual issue.

The opening scene. A drop of menstrual blood hits the pavement. It´s not necessary much more to understand that it´s a movie about girls. With a sort of disappointment, I already knew what to and what to not expect, an apprehension confirmed right in the next scenes, dialogues between the sisters. It´s not only a film from a girl´s point of view, but it is also like any other music biography we´ve already seen. Something like: turn up the sound and (try to) enjoy it.

The film tells the story of the beginning of the band, its success and fall, but it´s not exactly a film about The Runaways. It focus on Cherie Currie and Joan Jett, letting Lita Ford, Jackie Fox and Sandy West "in the backstage", being West the only one who has more scenes with them. With the exception of Cherie Bomb and I Love Rock N´Roll, we don´t see a daily band routine, the artistic process of writing and arranging songs, what would be more interesting than the pattern "sex, drugs and rock n´roll". Yes, it´s the year of 1975, they are the first all-girl rock band, but all this we already know.

It´s difficult to conceive that so young girls had so much freedom to do whatever they had in mind when we look to Dakota Fanning, still too "little" girl to convince us that she is the fox we've been waiting for. However, the times are others. If the real Runaways looked like what today would be twenty something, Fanning and Stewart fits perfectly into those seventeen years old.
Cherie Currie was much wilder for sure (what can be perceived in her voice) but Fanning makes a great job. Like I´ve read somewhere , she is making the transition from child actor to a grown up actress in a strong way.

Speaking about looks, if you, like me, didn´t really know The Runaways, but in the other hand knew The L Word, Kristen Stewart will look so much like Shane that will be hard to properly enjoy or take in consideration her portrait of Joan Jett. Too bad! After watching some old videos of The Runaways on youtube, I can say she is very good as Jett. Watching their live in Japan, in 1977, it´s incredible how Scout Taylor-Compto is very alike to Lita Ford.

As the years go by, that feeling of attraction stays the same. Each of us, in fact, looks different from how we looked when we met, but if I look to Edie now, she looks exactly the same to me. Exactly the same. And she will say the same thing the other way.


Edith "Edie" Windsor grew up in Philadelphia, got married, moved to Baltimore, split up and took off to NY. Thea Spyer was born in Amsterdan in 1931, moved to England in order to escape from Nazism, immigrated to USA in the beginning of 40´s and moved to NY in 1950. Around 1962, they met at Portofino, a restaurant in the West Village where the lesbians used to go on Friday nights. Two years later, their relationship really began and it lasted forever. Like says the marriage vows, "until death us do depart": after 41 years together, in May 22, 2007, they went to Toronto, Canada, when they officially got married. Two years later, Thea died.

If, as a "piece of art", Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement is below regular, as a documentary it is very good. It´also very important to marriage equality and every gay rights movement. If conscious campaigns are really necessary - and I think they are - stories like Edie and Thea´s should be used as a "flag". We can not ask for acceptance, but we have to ask for respect and equality*. Pride Parades don´t speak for me. Lady Gaga and alike, definitely do not speak for me. Instead of using such marketable figures and increase the mass consumer (un)culture, cases of real engagements should be shown in the big media. Unfortunately, they wouldn´t sell.
How many heterosexual and religious couples can say a word about real love? How many had the strength and guts to love and take care of your partner like Edie did? Thea was diagnosed with advanced multiple sclerosis with 45 years old. With her body slowly deteriorating, she was put in a wheelchair. The couple adapted to new situation with humor and passion.


Thea: If you came into this party and you didn´t know me at all and I was sitting there in that wheelchair, what would you do? Edie´s answer was great.

Edie: "Oh shit! I had to fall for the one in the wheelchair".


In any moment you doubt the veracity of their relationship or think it may be distorted by the cameras. Their love and caring is visible, almost touchable. There´s a true fondness in every hug, in every kiss, in the way they just look to each other. Luck? Soul mates? Who can say it? The fact is that they were able to build a relationship for a lifetime and that their life story is simply inspiring.


Thea: I have the love of my life. I have the love of my life. That´s number one. And I am able to afford huge and modern (ward?) assistance. I have no pain and I have no cognitive deficiency. Put that all together, if you don´t make a life with all those things going for you, I would say that there´s something really very wrong.

Edie: Keep joy as long as you can, ok? And if you have to solve problems, if that involves problems solving, than we do that.



*"The words 'bride' and 'groom' are not existent in Canada anymore. We have 'spouse' and 'spouse'. Everybody is equal". Harvey Browstone, the first openly gay judge in Canada, who married them.
**Edie "was a board member of Social Services and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Elders, also known as SAGE, from 1985 to 1987 and from 2004 to 2006." Today, she is still a gay rights activist.

Two women who were best friends when teenagers meet again by chance. One of them is married, a traditional housewife. The other is a free-spirit lesbian music teacher. Till there, what we have is the typical plot seen to exhaustion. However, "For 80 Days" tells the story of two elderly women who meet after 50 years apart and it does with such a tenderness that every generalization about men being heartless falls through. I explain myself: " For 80 Days" was written and directed by the Basque directors Jon Garaño and José Mari Goenaga that succeeded in bringing up the complex subjects of homosexuality and ageing in a warm and accessible narrative.

It's also a story about second chances and the weight of social and self-imposed conventions and beliefs; the weight of life, after all.

*Also check out: "Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement", by Susan Muska and Gréta Olafsdóttir.