She Must Be Seeing Things
                Reviewed by Linda Lopez McAlister
            For The Women's Show, WMNF-FM, Tampa, FL
                          June 16, 1991

   This week, courtesy of the First Annual Pride Film Festival,
we have the opportunity in Tampa to see two more highly acclaimed
films by young women directors:  Alexandra von Grote's
"Novembermoon" and Jane McLaughlin's "She Must Be Seeing Things."
The press preview of these films hasn't happened yet so I am not
able to review "Novembermoon."  I can tell you that it was made in
1984 by a French and German joint production team, and that it is
a love story about two lesbian lovers during the Nazi occupation
of France and its aftermath.  It won the Audience Favorite award
at the 1987 San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.

    I have seen Friday night's other lesbian feature film, "She
Must Be Seeing Things," written and directed by Jane McLauglin and
though I have some reservations about it, I find it a very
interesting and, ultimately, very enjoyable film.  The first
thing that should be said about "She Must be Seeing Things" is that
it may be the first feature film ever made in which the leading
characters are a lesbian couple who are still together in the
final reel and in fact literally frolic into the sunset. How many
times have you seen that on screen?  Come to think of it, this
film breaks new ground in any number of ways.  It's a lesbian
love story that is not a coming out story.  The two lovers, Jo
and Agatha, are mature women already involved in a relationship
when the film begins.  And it is the first feature film with a
lesbian theme I have ever seen that really tries seriously to
explore some of the more difficult aspects of the relationship
between the two women, among them: the bisexuality of one of the
two partners, the obsessive jealousy of the other, differences in
how they relate to their living space (one is neat the other a
slob), the stress on the relationship created by demanding career
responsibilities (Jo is a filmmaker and Agatha works for an
international organization of some sort), one partner's near
problem drinking, and the fact that they come from different
racial and cultural backgrounds.

   The film uses a complex structure to deal with these complex
issues and it is constructed on three different levels--the
literal narrative of what happens to Jo and Agatha, the fantasy
lives of both women, and the film-within-a-film Jo is in the
process of making.  There is frequent abrupt intercutting between
these three levels, to good emotional effect.  The progress of
the film within a film with its religious symbolism and tortured
heroine parallels the rising crescendo of Agatha's ordeal as she
tries through cross dressing and voyeurism to discover the truth
about Jo.  The title "She Must Be Seeing Things" is appropriately
ambiguous.

   The lovemaking scenes between Jo and Agatha are among the more
realistic lesbian sexual interludes on film.  There is, however,
one scene in which Jo does a striptease, which seemed to me much
too close for comfort to the way in which straight male Hollywood
films fetishize and objectify women.  It made me stop and wonder
why a lesbian director would want to use her camera to put a
woman's body on display just the way the quintessentially male
gaze does; surely we can and should find our own filmic language
for expressing lesbian sensuality and sexuality, rather than
mimicking the way the patriarchy does it.

    Like most non-mainstream films, this one is clearly a low-
budget effort and it shows, not only in the production values,
but in the quality of the film and soundtrack as well.  Add to
that the fact that this film is going to be exhibited in the
Tampa Theater in 16mm format instead of 35mm which is standard
for theaters, and you may find the viewing quality lower than you
are accustomed to.  Nonetheless, it, along with the other feature
"Novembermoon" (which will be shown in 35mm) should make for a
great evening of film going for anyone interested in women and
film.  Next week I'll review the third lesbian theme film in the
Pride Film Festival, "Lianna," which will be shown on Sunday night,
June 24.

     For the WMNF Women's Show, this is Linda Lopez McAlister on
women and film.