Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: TERRA FEMME [Camden International Film Festival 2021 - Virtual]

Home movies always tend to have an air of nostalgia in them but often times a sociological or psychological viewpoint. While fairly simple in its approach and almost overtly somber, "Terra Femme" by director Courtney Stephens takes an interesting viewpoint of looking at early travelogue films, many who were filmed by women in interesting circumstances (almost under the radar because of their social standing, even internationally) from the 1920s until the 1950s. Stephens herself narrates the film and explains purely in voiceover that she went on voyage of exploration when she was originally diagnosed with a medical condition that made her re-evaulate her life and pursue her instincts in a slight different way. She tracks one of the initial women who began taking these films though the subject disappears from history (we find out the irony of her circumstances at the conclusion). But what is undeniable is that Stephens asks us to look at the films from a female gaze in terms of interpretation versus how men at the time would have filmed or seen the world at that time (which was was the predominant form in mass media). It is an interesting dichotomy whether it is with dancers in a market, a woman filming her team on a dig in the Middle East or the wife of soldier filming in a women-only wedding ritual in Bahrain. Some of the archive finds interweave brilliantly and some of them are definitely quite intriguing while others are less riveting.

The aspect of long gazing and perspective are interesting in terms of rights, societal norms, repressed feelings, textures of power, dismissal, sexual preference...there are so many inferred possibilities that the light of the perspective simply turns on. Stephens makes some generalized and some specific perceptions which key in the idea of "What If" create a meaning and thereby a reinterpretation. What makes it intriguing is that most of the film footage is silent of course showing first views on camera of the Orient or the Middle East though one cannot know what is being said. Points of ritual and passersby staring into camera as if peering from the past...all of these details creating an interesting build but these people's feelings and what they felt internally are lost to time. But like puzzle pieces it is interesting to pontificate, There is some found anonymous footage of a black man, perhaps a diplomat with his wife (also black - but who does look glam) first in London at some sites and then speaking on the ground in Moscow in the early 50s (where it was hard to get a visa anyway much less film). These frozen moments in time are of course intriguing. Or a woman hired by the Ford Motor Company in the 20s to drive in different places around the world taking films. Like a modern social media star, the media follows her every move only for her to be pulled in a scandal of sorts with her producer, whom she later married, before he was murdered by unknown assailants. She re-emerged and kept taking the films that showed her resilience around the world. Some of these travels shown (even into safaris in Africa) can parallel the greatest of novels but it was these people's lives, maybe not quite normal but definitely heightened. the women who took these films when cinema (especially home movies/travelogues) were in their infancy is an interesting view into the past no mostly lost to modernity. B

By Tim Wassberg