WMNF-FM The Women's Show Year's Best Feminist Films of 1993 To be broadcast January 1, 1994 By Linda Lopez McAlister It is my habit this time of the year to taken a look back over the films I've reviewed since January and award "Linda's Labyrises" to the ten best feminist films of the past year. I don't try to rank them in any sort of hierarchical rank order; I just list them alphabetically and give a brief description of the film and what I liked about it. If you missed these films during the year, you might want to save the list and look for them in the video stores when we hit those inevitable stretches when there's nothing in the theaters that a feminist would care to see. So here they are, Linda's Labyris Award Winners of 1993: THE BALLAD OF LITTLE JO. (USA. Written and directed by Maggie Greenwald). The historically accurate account of a woman on her own in 19th C. America who, like untold others, found safety, work, and survival by passing as a man. That in itself was criminal but when she becomes lovers with a Chinese man she rescues from a mob they can both expect to be killed if their relationship is discovered. THE JOY LUCK CLUB (USA. Written by Amy Tan; directed by Wayne Wang). This may not be the best film on the list (it's rather superficial and chaotic at times), but it's notable all the same for its focus on the relationships between women and their adult daughters and because a Chinese-American writer and director are giving voice--for the first time in a Hollywood big-budget film-- from within their culture to the experience of two generations of Chinese and Chinese-American women. JUST ANOTHER GIRL ON THE IRT (USA. Written and directed by Leslie Harris). A lively and important first feature film about African-American women by an African-American woman film maker that deals with contemporary subject matter. In this case the girl on the IRT is a bright 17 year-old New Yorker with big plans who gets sidetracked by pregnancy. Take your kids to see this one. They'll like it's sound and flash and music and they need to hear its message. LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE (MEXICO. Written by Laura Esquivel; directed by Alfonso Arau). My personal favorite this year. Novelist Laura Esquivel has cooked up her deliciously magical novel for the screen and it came out perfectly. A burning love story set on the Texas/Mexico border during the Mexican Revolution, complete with a (historically accurate) female officer in Pancho Villa's army. After seeing the film you may buy the novel just for the recipes. NITRATE KISSES (USA. Written and directed by Barbara Hammer). This feature-length film by veteran lesbian/feminist experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer will not be everyone's cup of tea for it scarcely has a narrative and its imagery is often difficult. Yet it is important to view these intensely honest and personal images for they make us realize by contrast what we are not used to seeing on the screen, e.g., septuagenarian lesbian lovemaking, leather dykes viewed with respect, Willa Cather's lesbianism openly discussed, and gorgeous shots from early homoerotic archival footage. ORLANDO (UK. Written and directed by Sally Potter). I, for one, was thrilled by Sally Potter's translation of Virginia Woolf's valentine for her beloved Vita Sackville-West to the screen. It was done with wit and imagination and is beautiful to behold. And Tilda Swinton makes a lovely androgyne. PASSION FISH (USA. Written and directed by John Sayles). Is John Sayles a feminist? Sometimes he seems so (sometimes not). Here his story of an arrogant, self-centered, strong-willed white actress (Mary McDonald) paralyzed in a car crash and the equally strong-willed black woman hired to care for her (Alfre Woodard) and the love/hate relationship the develops between them as they're stuck with one another in rural Louisiana makes me say yes this time. THE PIANO (AUS. Written and directed by Jane Campion). Campion is right at the summit of the new generation of women writer/ directors making films around the world today. This incredibly affecting (not to say disturbing) and original film about another strong-willed woman, this time a mute mail-order bride in the New Zealand outback, who has her trials but who knows her own mind (and body), is Campion's magnum opus to date. A Cannes Festival winner with some Oscars in its future, I'm sure. SOPHIE (SCAND. Written and directed by Liv Ullman). Though not widely distributed this is a lovely first film by Liv Ullman that brings the audience into the rhythms of life of a 19th C. Danish Jewish woman. Liv learned well from Bergman and borrows some of his favorite actors to bring her characters to life. WIDE SARGASSO SEA (AUS. From the novel by Jean Rhys; directed by John Duigan). This is a very laudable screen adaptation of the Jean Rhys novel that is the "prequel" to Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre. It tells the early life of Bertha Mason Rochester, the "madwoman in the attic" in that novel and will change the way you read that novel forever.