Films Viewed in 2016, cont.: July, August, and September and Women Empowered

Cutie and the Boxer (Dir. Heinzerling, 2013)

This candid New York love story explores the chaotic 40-year marriage of famed boxing painter Ushio Shinohara and his wife, Noriko. Anxious to shed her role as her overbearing husband's assistant, Noriko finds an identity of her own.

On its simplest level, “Cutie and the Boxer” is a documentary about a couple who could be sort of the Bickersons of the art world. Lurking just beneath, however, is a painful, powerful portrait of the struggle and sacrifice required to create, and the cost that it can demand. (Bill Goodykoonz, The Atlantic)

Mustang (Dir.  Deniz Gamze Ergüven, 2015)  

Early summer. In a village in northern Turkey, Lale and her four sisters are walking home from school, playing innocently with some boys. The immorality of their play sets off a scandal that has unexpected consequences. The family home is progressively transformed into a prison; instruction in homemaking replaces school and marriages start being arranged. The five sisters who share a common passion for freedom, find ways of getting around the constraints imposed on them.

Mustang tells a straightforward story of female empowerment, but it’s the way it tells that story that makes it deserving of all the accolades it’s received, including an Oscar nomination for best foreign-language film. Though the movie has won (superficial) comparisons to The Virgin Suicides, it has a more distinctly female perspective and is too close to its subjects to feel voyeuristic. The trouble begins in the first 10 minutes of the film, when some nasty gossip and a misunderstanding turns innocent fun into a minor sexual scandal, leading the girls’ relatives to increasingly shut down their access to the outside world. The Turkish-born French director Deniz Gamze Ergüven balances out the film’s creeping claustrophobia with quiet (and not-so-quiet) acts of rebellion, unexpected humor, and warmth, and the result is a tender and fresh coming-of-age film that honors the bonds of womanhood and sisterhood without taking them for granted. (Lenika Cruz, The Atlantic)

Margarita with a Straw (Dir.  Shonali Bose, Nilesh Maniyar, 2014)

A rebellious young woman with cerebral palsy leaves her home in India to study in New York, unexpectedly falls in love, and embarks on an exhilarating journey of self-discovery.  

“Margarita, With a Straw” is one of the least hand-wringing movies ever made about a character with significant disabilities. Born with cerebral palsy, our heroine here certainly has her physical limitations and related psychological setbacks, but it’s her adventurous spirit (abetted by supportive family and friends) that sets the tone in Shonali Bose’s winning sophomore feature. Like her first, 2005’s “Amu,” this tale is rather Westernized in the telling, with narrative feet planted in both India and the U.S. That factor, good reviews and the pic’s crowdpleasing nature should guide it from a successful festival run to various format sales in numerous offshore territories, with niche theatrical sleeper status possible. (Dennis Harvey, Variety)