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"The Films of Su Friedrich (Outcast Films, 5 volumes)",
Film Comment
Along with Yvonne Rainer, Su Friedrich is the avant-garde’s
most respected and accomplished contemporary feminist. To a greater
degree than perhaps anyone else save for Brakhage, her films are—refreshingly,
gloriously—all over the map: shorts and features; scripted
narratives and documentary interviews; glancing diaries and lean
structural workouts. What binds them is a relentless, often acerbic
exploration of autobiographical memory, the roots and branches of
personal identity. Outcast’s excellent five-disc set balances
longer films with “bonus” shorts. The celebrated Sink
or Swim (90), a coolly moving dissection of Friedrich’s troubled
relationship with her dismissive father, is ballasted by two early
white-hot jabs at street-level patriarchal power. And if you feel
resigned to the fact that movies can no longer say anything interesting
about romantic obsession, Rules of the Road (93), an extra on the
disc featuring Damned if You Don’t (84), a Catholic school
girl’s lesbian fantasy, will turn you inside out and back
again.
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