Category: The Intimate Detachment of Mai Zetterling

A quick Note on Loving Couples

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Two women, one with dark hair and one with light blonde hair, stare lovingly at each other while they row a boat on open water.

|John Moret| Loving Couples begins with a squeaky-wheeled gurney moving across a tiled hospital floor. Formally, the opening is one that is both intriguing and well-known. If you’ve seen much Swedish cinema of the period, the black and white film stock accompanied by the camera… Continue reading

The Women Men Don’t See: On Mai Zetterling’s The Girls

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A crowd of women dressed in 60s era clothing stare at an unseen figure off camera.

|Courtney Kowalke| “Women are taught to see their bodies in parts, and to evaluate each part separately. Breasts, feet, hips, waistline, neck, eyes, nose, complexion, hair, and so on—each in turn is submitted to an anxious, fretful, often despairing scrutiny. Even if some pass… Continue reading

The Real Power of the Lioness on the Cheese Grater…

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A woman on the left stands upright with a script pressed to her chest. Another woman stands to her right, holding a cigarette. Below them is text that reads, "It's up to us womenfolk to do something".

|Veda Lawrence| Revisiting The Girls in a cultural moment dominated by Barbie movie discourse, I could not help but muse about the perils of improperly reappropriating anti-feminist source material to a feminist narrative. Where the problematic seed at the heart of Barbie is pretty… Continue reading