100 great movies by female direc­tors – part 10

Haifaa Al Man­sour, like Jafar Panahi, belongs to the spe­cial class of film­mak­ers who are rebelling against a cul­tur­al­ly restric­tive state by the very act of mak­ing movies. Filmed in secret in Sau­di Ara­bia, Wadjda’s inde­pen­dent spir­it extends from the director’s off-screen motives to the nature of her on-screen hero­ine. Wad­j­da is a 10-year-old girl who is unfazed regard­ing what school and soci­ety expects her to be. She wants a bike like her male best friend. And that’s that. Except in the back­ground. Al Man­sour drops char­ac­ters in dif­fer­ent states of cap­tiv­i­ty and fear and who make Wadjda’s char­ac­ter seem mirac­u­lous­ly pro­gres­sive by con­trast. The young star, street-cast Waad Mohammed, gives a delight­ful per­for­mance. She has the cheeki­est smile and the most opti­mistic of ener­gies. Al Man­sour lets her have fun with her role while writ­ing in com­plex famil­ial rela­tion­ship. Wadjda’s moth­er is played by Reem Abdul­lah, one of the biggest female stars in Sau­di Ara­bia. Sophie Monks Kaufman

“Cin­e­matog­ra­phy by Agnes Godard” should be enough to con­vince any­one to watch Ursu­la Meier’s Sis­ter. Bet­ter known for her work with Claire Denis, Godard’s soft, dark tones and her empha­sis on tex­ture and sur­face are cen­tral to the rel­a­tive­ly recent and large­ly female-dri­ven ​“cin­e­ma of the body”. Focused more on phys­i­cal pres­ence and sen­sa­tions than on sto­ry or plot, this ​“hap­tic” cin­e­ma is dia­met­ri­cal­ly opposed to the didac­tic, action-dri­ven pro­gres­sion of main­stream and, yes, male cin­e­ma. As it fol­lows the expe­ri­ence of a child, Sis­ter is all the more inclined to eschew plot in favour of a series of encoun­ters that are either bru­tal, ten­der, or both at the same time – and look out for an over­whelm­ing cameo. Ursu­la Meier’s film avoids clichéd rela­tion­ships and easy res­o­lu­tions even as the cru­el­ty of the sit­u­a­tion howls for them; it’s the qui­et rest­less­ness of the image, the dor­mant pos­si­bil­i­ty for change, that makes Sis­ter feel like a bit­ter yet wel­comed breath of fresh air. Ele­na Lazic

Josephine Deck­er con­sec­u­tive­ly released two fea­tures: But­ter on the Latch and Thou Wast Mild and Love­ly, which make for a com­ple­men­tary and dis­turb­ing dou­ble-bill. The for­mer edges it as the most log­i­cal place to start a Deck­erthon – a cin­e­mat­ic realm where sen­su­al­i­ty aris­es out of sit­u­a­tions that don’t sit right. But­ter on the Latch begins in New York with Sarah (Sarah Small) watch­ing a play and then receiv­ing a phone call from a friend who has wok­en up in a strange house sur­round­ed by strange peo­ple. Sarah becomes hys­ter­i­cal before going on a ben­der and wak­ing up top­less in a not entire­ly dis­sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion. Such an open­ing usu­al­ly sets in motion a plot that uses trau­mat­ic events as a coher­ent nar­ra­tive dri­ve. Not so here. Sarah’s next move is to leave for a folk music camp in the woods with an old friend named Isol­de. A hand-held cam­era cap­tures the look and sound of flo­ra, fau­na, hip­py music and an inti­mate catch-up between friends. It’s like the film has reset and start again. Deck­er addles our expec­ta­tions, fur­ther con­fus­ing the mood as we become almost drunk on the out­doorsy ambi­ence. The cli­max is incred­i­ble and wor­thy of a mil­lion dif­fer­ent read­ings. SMK

Part Abbas Kiarosta­mi, part Tsai Ming-liang, and all aston­ish­ing­ly true to the soul and spir­it of the film that has entombed one man’s past as a screen on which to project a com­mu­nal dream, A Thou­sand Suns needs only 44 min­utes to revi­talise, and reaf­firm the most impor­tant Sene­galese movie ever made. Djib­ril Diop Mambéty’s 1973 film Tou­ki Bou­ki bor­rowed from the French New Wave to con­vey a Sene­gal that was wracked with inner tur­moil over the unde­ni­able allure of hybridi­s­a­tion. By respond­ing to her uncle’s mas­ter­piece some four decades lat­er Mati Diop cre­at­ed a mas­ter­piece of her own, fol­low­ing the actor who starred in Tou­ki Bou­ki (Mag­a­ye Niang) as he hitch­hikes to a free screen­ing of the project that once had him enter­tain­ing dreams of trav­el­ing to Hol­ly­wood and work­ing along­side John Wayne. Jar­ring­ly inter­cut­ting ​“doc­u­men­tary” footage of Niang’s night and images of the aging farmer wan­der­ing through the snows of Alas­ka to find the woman who once played his love inter­est, the younger Diop stands astride the inter­sec­tion between the real and the imag­ined, con­flat­ing the two so as to trace how Niang’s real­i­ty was frac­tured by his brief sec­ond life as a movie star. As Niang drunk­en­ly tells a friend who’s try­ing to pro­tect him from falling into the sea: ​“You don’t have a home until you’ve left, and as soon as you’re gone you can’t go back.” David Ehrlich

Forty one min­utes of pure per­fec­tion. Jodie Mack is a UK-born, US-based stop-frame brico­lage artist whose style recalls Jan Švankma­jer by way of Stan Brakhage and Nor­man McLaren. This 2013 opus sees the direc­tor pitch­ing her jaun­ty wig­wam in her mother’s fail­ing poster con­ces­sion and pro­duc­ing an ani­mat­ed rock opera which just might be one of the great­est films ever made about a mutu­al­ly lov­ing rela­tion­ship between a moth­er and her daugh­ter. The glo­ri­ous tumult of inven­tive sequences was enough to bring tears to this viewer’s eyes – the ener­gy and dili­gence in every frame pre­sent­ing some­one intent on mak­ing some­thing wor­thy of the woman she reveres, respects and pities. Iron­i­cal­ly, the film is also an affir­ma­tive cut-and-paste state­ment about how one tan­gi­ble enti­ty (a ware­house out­let in its final throes of life) gives life to anoth­er (a film shot on 16mm about the death of poster cul­ture). And if that wasn’t enough, Mack has record­ed an album’s worth of of AM rock cov­ers with spruced-up lyrics which offer a wry com­men­tary of her ma’s unfor­tu­nate predica­ment and the decline in appetite for posters due the steam­rolling of dig­i­tal. It’s the very encap­su­la­tion of bit­ter­sweet, at once utter­ly joy­ous and stealth­ily heart­break­ing. David Jenk­ins

Desiree Akhavan’s brand of humour is root­ed in a com­bi­na­tion of alert thought­ful­ness and total dead­pan. As the writer, direc­tor and star, she is nev­er still. Her script and per­for­mance is always reach­ing for some­thing, be it a punch­line or a gut-punch. The plea­sure comes from watch­ing these forces play out via Akhavan’s phys­i­cal­i­ty. The cam­era adores her exot­ic fea­tures which are off­set by dia­logue spo­ken with a dry New York­er emphases. Her nat­ur­al deliv­ery rapid­ly and breezi­ly under­cuts friends, her ex-girl­friend and fam­i­ly alike. Noth­ing stag­nates when she is around. Ideas, sex scenes, wor­ry and sad­ness all bounce along dri­ven by the same sharp mind. Appro­pri­ate Behav­iour – as Akhavan’s debut fea­ture – is a show­case for all of her tal­ents but who’s to say that in ten years there won’t be anoth­er ten oth­er films to vie for the title of her best work. SMK

Every so often a film comes along with such weight that it tem­porar­i­ly oblit­er­ates the part of the brain respon­si­ble for speech. Signe Baumane’s debut fea­ture ani­ma­tion is about five women in her fam­i­ly that expe­ri­enced men­tal ill­ness – four in silence and the fifth one, her, with words, images and a huge amount of detec­tive work into her rel­a­tives’ lives. The bril­liance of Rocks in my Pock­ets stems from the style with which Bau­mane talks about sui­cide and suf­fer­ing. Sub­jects that are usu­al­ly dis­cussed in rev­er­ent whis­pers are ani­mat­ed with rich sym­bol­ism accom­pa­nied by Baumane’s fab­u­lous­ly blunt nar­ra­tion. Rather than skirt anx­ious­ly around the sub­ject of men­tal ill­ness, Bau­mane deploys the cin­e­mat­ic force of immer­sion, recre­at­ing with a mix of stop-motion and hand-drawn ani­ma­tion the sur­re­al­i­ty and vivid­ness of the emo­tion­al land­scapes she is inves­ti­gat­ing. Mean­while, she is deliv­er­ing a snap­py his­to­ry les­son pro­vid­ing the dai­ly details of grow­ing up in Sovi­et Latvia. There are sto­ries with­in sto­ries. Pro­found insights are flung out with breath­less speed. The effect is dizzy­ing and won­der­ful. Not only has Bau­mane tak­en own­er­ship of her per­son­al and famil­ial suf­fer­ing, she has also launched her­self as an inspi­ra­tional cre­ative force of nature. SMK

Per­haps an ear­ly self-school­ing in the mas­ter­works of Car­pen­ter, Craven and Cro­nen­berg is to blame for my indif­fer­ence to mod­ern hor­ror cin­e­ma. Or maybe the genre has sim­ply crossed over into the deriv­a­tive realm of post­mod­ernism. Either way, it’s extreme­ly rare for a con­tem­po­rary chiller to have a pro­found effect on me, no mat­ter how will­ing I am for some­thing to jolt me from my seat. Enter Aus­tralian writer/​director Jen­nifer Kent’s assured fea­ture debut, The Babadook – com­fort­ably the scari­est film of 2014 and quite pos­si­bly the cur­rent decade. It’s not just the epony­mous shad­ow-lurk­ing spook and repeat­ed use of a creepy bed­time rhyme that makes The Babadook so unnerv­ing, but the man­ner in which Kent taps into the emo­tion of fear. We all know there’s no such things as ghosts, but when some­one is unable to escape the demons occu­py­ing their own mind – now that’s prop­er­ly ter­ri­fy­ing. That Kent man­ages to elic­it a knock­out cen­tral per­for­mance from Essie Davis as the rapid­ly unrav­el­ling sin­gle-moth­er who’s suf­fered a recent psy­cho­log­i­cal trau­ma only inten­si­fies her film’s impact. Good hor­ror has the pow­er to shock you in the moment; great hor­ror stays with you long after the lights come up. Adam Wood­ward

It’s sur­pris­ing and shame­ful to think that in the half a cen­tu­ry since his death not a sin­gle nar­ra­tive fea­ture has been made about Mar­tin Luther King, Jr. All that changed ear­li­er this year, how­ev­er, when an emerg­ing Amer­i­can direc­tor by the name of Ava DuVer­nay announced her­self with one of the rich­est and most essen­tial his­tor­i­cal dra­mas in mem­o­ry. The tim­ing of Sel­ma couldn’t have been more per­ti­nent. With the deaths of Eric Gar­ner and Michael Brown hav­ing plunged Amer­i­ca into its worst civ­il con­flict since the 1992 Los Ange­les Riots, DuVernay’s film served as both a time­ly reminder of the progress made dur­ing the African-Amer­i­can Civ­il Rights Move­ment and a ral­ly­ing cry to every­one who acknowl­edges that there is still plen­ty of work to be done. A pow­er­house lead turn from Britain’s David Oyelowo cou­pled with Paul Webb’s rous­ing script – made all the more impres­sive by the fact the speech­es were with­held by Dr King’s fam­i­ly estate – gives the film added res­o­nance. What­ev­er direc­tion Steven Spiel­berg decides to take his long-moot­ed MLK biopic in, he’ll have a hard time sur­pass­ing Sel­ma. AW

Mak­ing movies asks that we ignore the real­ties of time. Ignor­ing the penis-mea­sur­ing antics of the one-take won­ders who seem to be crop­ping up ever more increas­ing­ly, a cut is a state­ment about time pass­ing, a gap which requires view­ers to con­sid­er what might have been there. Few rely on the melan­cholic pow­er of the edit more than French direc­tor Mia Hansen-Løve, who with her sub­lime fourth fea­ture com­press­es the insti­ga­tion and dec­i­ma­tion of an entire cul­tur­al move­ment into a sin­gle fea­ture run­time. Based on the life of her broth­er Sven, a house DJ through­out the ​’90s, the film fol­lows the mild-man­nered Paul as he attempts to ded­i­cate his life to spin­ning wax plat­ters, mak­ing peo­ple hap­py and keep­ing aloft the torch of a very spe­cif­ic sub-strand of elec­tron­ic music. It’s a stag­ger­ing work, the director’s best, at once a care­ful extrap­o­la­tion of artis­tic scenes and cul­tur­al burn-out, and also about how time and change are inex­tri­ca­ble from one anoth­er. DJ

Read more 100 great movies by female direc­tors: 1 – 10 | 11 – 20 | 21 – 30 | 31 – 40 | 41 – 50 | 51 – 60 | 61 – 70 | 71 – 80 | 81 – 90