MOVIE REVIEWS | INTERVIEWS | YOUTUBE |  NEWS |  EDITORIALS | EVENTS | AUDIO | ESSAYS | ARCHIVES | CONTACT |
 PHOTOS | COMING SOON| EXAMINER.COM FILM ARTICLES ||HOME

                                                          
Tuesday, December 16, 2014

MOVIE REVIEW She's Beautiful When She's Angry
 United, Disunited, But Together In The Women's Fight

A still photo from Mary Dore's excellent documentary "She's Beautiful When She's Angry".  International Film Circuit
       
by Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com        Follow popcornreel on Twitter FOLLOW                                           
Tuesday, December 16, 2014

 Mary Dore's "She's Beautiful When She's Angry" is a riveting, kaleidoscopic look at the evolution of the 1960s women's rights movement and feminism as defined by and for women.  That last part -- definition by women -- resonates especially, and is extremely important.  Chronicling 1966 through the early 1970s, Ms. Dore gives us rich, layered and fascinating insights about women defining themselves on their terms in a political movement in a male-dominated and sexist world. 

We glimpse priceless archival footage and interviews with the pillars and major players of the feminist movement, as well as some names you may not be as aware of.  "She's Beautiful" goes deep, exploring the fissures of the women's movement, including along America's dividing fault lines of race, sexual orientation and sexual identity.  It is the politics of these attributes of the feminist movement that are the most galvanizing and potent of all. 

Class is a theme seen but not necessarily explored in "She's Beautiful" -- yet it's there, staring you right in the face.  There are so many fine scenes in the documentary, so many instructive episodes, lessons and keen introspection in the film that demands your attention and consideration.  Rifts between Betty Friedan and others.  Stories about the recognition of Black women whose concerns often were submerged or ignored within the feminist movement.  And much more.

Today's woman or man may not be aware of just how wide-ranging, empowering or successful the 1960s and 1970s feminist activist movement was.  I'm so glad that Mary Dore has chronicled its power, diversity, strength, direct truth to power and its unapologetic empowerment of women so well.  This film elevated me.  And made me more hopeful and even more appreciative and thankful for the feminist movement than I already had been.

I was always engaged by this beautiful experience of a documentary.  There's never a dull moment.  Each and every facet of this film is always alive, in its assessments of sexual politics, generational feminist politics and identity politics, and in its take on inclusiveness under the umbrella of feminism.  Most of all, Ms. Dore and her team apply care, sensitivity and sincere investigation into the internal workings of such a vital, important political and social movement, which shook up the male establishment and made it shudder in the process. 

One of the film's most arresting and brilliant episodes is the story of Lavender movement.  I can't say much more about it if you aren't familiar, but I found its place within the women's rights movement itself as revolutionary -- as well as one of the most astoundingly great bits of footage on the feminist movement I've ever been privy to.  I had previously been unaware of the dimensions of the Lavender movement, and (perhaps naively) hadn't realized that "factions" within the women's movement ran so deeply. 

In a year when Hollywood films on women and by women, and on actresses before the camera have yet again been so pitifully barren "She's Beautiful When She's Angry" is a stunning, edifying work.  Ms. Dore's documentary is the perfect antidote and history lesson to the ongoing and appalling lack of consistent, positive, uplifting Hollywood films today about women. 

With "She's Beautiful When She's Angry" Ms. Dore reminds us that the struggle for women's rights, equal justice, equal pay and equal power for women continues.  In every way this film is an important, must-see experience.

"She's Beautiful When She's Angry" is playing now in New York City and Los Angeles, including at these theaters in the U.S.  The film is not rated by the Motion Picture Association Of America but contains some brief nudity and descriptive language.  The film's running time is one hour and 32 minutes.
COPYRIGHT 2014.  POPCORNREEL.COM.  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.                Follow popcornreel on Twitter FOLLOW
MOVIE REVIEWS | INTERVIEWS | YOUTUBE |  NEWS |  EDITORIALS | EVENTS | AUDIO | ESSAYS | ARCHIVES | CONTACT | PHOTOS | COMING SOON| EXAMINER.COM FILM ARTICLES ||HOME