Leave it to popular media to create a fashion for helplessness. In the 110 years that have passed since William Randolph Hearst's titular heroine fought her way to #emancipation in The Perils of Pauline (1914), “the damsel in distress” is still very much the go-to trope for movie writers. Sadly, instead of debunking the belief that women need to be protected by men from men, it's now embraced by third wave feminism. Just yesterday – November 25, 2023 – I saw a call to arms from a leftwing feminist group to “protect girls” from the primal evil that is manhood. Oh how we did better once.

“I don't know what to do with her Highness. Say right and she'll go left, say left and she'll go right. And though she is a girl, she has never shown me a tear.”

– old lady-in-waiting

In Kurosawa's 隠し砦の三悪人, a couple of greedy peasants escort a man and woman across enemy lines after the man has promised them a share of the gold they're carrying. Unknowingly, the fools not only protect their bounty, but a general and princess trying to escape an enemy clan so they can rebuild their kingdom. And also unbeknownst to the tricksters, Makabe and Yuki are not as helpless as they may seem.

In Věra Chytilová's O něčem jiném, parallel storylines, one filmed as a documentary the other as a fictional drama, of two women are shown.

“So where do we go from here?”

– Eva

Olympic gymnast Eva (Eva Bosáková) undergoes a gruelling training regime. Housewife Věra (Věra Uzelacová) feels neglected by her husband. Both ruminate on a different life.

Ester Krumbachová's feminist farce is a delight of many flavours. Ona (Jiřina Bohdalová) is already 40 and in need of a man. She remembers one from her youth, the handsome, slim, and very cultured Eng. Bohouš Čerta (litt. “God the Devil, Engineer”, played by the always great Vladimír Menšík), and knows that the one way to a man's heart is through the stomach.

 

Her cooking is immaculate. So are her looks and her apartment (all created by one-time director Krumbachová who worked as a costume designer and screenwriter). Unfortunately, her beau has turned boorish and stuffs his face with all but her and the furniture (is that true?). But cooking she can, and wanting she does. So she cooks and cooks and cooks up some more.

Commissioned for a West-German TV series called Kunstgeschichten (litt. both “art stories” and “#art histories”), filmmaker Harun Farocki visits artist Sarah Schumann in her #Berlin studio.

“An diesem Tag war das Bild, drei Monate nach Beginn und 67 Arbeitstagen fertig.”

– narrator

The resulting documentary shows the process of creating one art piece over the course of nine weeks. Schumann's work in that period consists of collage portraits of women important in her life.