ON FEMALE DESIRE AND BALANCING THE GAZE (WITH BASJE BOER)

Eroticism should be found in balance! Now isn’t it about time that women in cinema got to look back, shifting the gaze back on to the male, or at least express what it is like to be looked at through the male gaze that has dominated cinema. Basje Boer, film critic and author, joins us in celebrating female desire in cinema and exploring the complex gender dynamics within cinema and the effect it has on us as an audience. Our film club choice The Beguiled (Sofia Coppola, 2017) kickstarts our discussion, a hot take on what happens when you equalise desire. As always, if you have any questions you would like us to discuss or stories about cinema you would like to share then please email us at celebratingcinema@lab111.nl

Our guest

Basje Boer (1980, Amsterdam) is an author and film critic. She has published various novels, including Nulversie (2019, Nijgh & Van Ditmar) and Bermuda (2016, Nijgh & Van Ditmar), and writes about film, pop culture, art and literature for Dutch magazines De Groene Amsterdammer and De Filmkrant, among others.

She has written at length about topics like the female (and male) gaze, female representation in film and her novels are riddled with references to films and plays on the cliches of cinema.

Next episode

We will discuss everything food has to offer in cinema. What does food and the act of eating reveal about cinematic characters? Why are we often so mesmerised by those eating on screen, desiring the very food that they are consuming? Join us for a very tasteful discussion. WARNING – Do Not Listen While Hungry!

Film Club

(Come watch with us at LAB111 – book your tickets)

The sophomore directorial effort from ill-fated Japanese filmmaker Juzo Itami, Tampopo is an off-beat comedy featuring several intersecting stories all related to food. Tsutomu Yamazaki plays Goro, a truck driver who helps a young widow named Tampopo (Nobuko Miyamoto) improve her noodle restaurant. Over the course of the film, the story drifts around, not only following the stories of Tampopo, her son, and Goro, but also a number of customers who come through the diner, including an old woman (Izumi Hara) who insists on squeezing the cheese at a market and a criminal (Ken Watanabe) with a food-based kink. Tampopo was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the 1988 Independent Spirit Awards.

Films mentioned

(click on the links for tickets to screenings at LAB111)

Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978)
The Beguiled (Sofia Coppola, 2017)
The Beguiled (Don Siegel, 1971)
Only God Forgives (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2013)
Dirty Dancing (Emile Ardolino, 1987)
Spetters (Paul Verhoeven, 1980)
Total Recall (Paul Verhoeven, 1990)
La Vie d’Adèle (Abdellatif Kechiche, 2013)
Portrait De La Jeune Fille En Feu (Céline Sciamma, 2019)
The World To Come (Mona Fastvold, 2020)
Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola, 2006)
Lost In Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003)
The New World (Terrence Malick, 2005)
Miami Vice (Michael Mann, 2006)
Fatal Attraction (Adrian Lyne, 1989)
Thief (Michael Mann, 1981)
Heat (Michael Mann, 1995)
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
Cinderella (Kenneth Branagh, 2015)
Beau Travail (Claire Denis, 1999)
In The Cut (Jane Campion, 2003)
Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold, 2009)
Sin City (Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, 2005)
Jennifer’s Body (Karyn Kusama, 2009)
Tampopo (Jûzô Itami, 1985)