made with
sorry for the mistakes!
Journey among women
We must admit our limits. And so I admit, I didn't understand what I
saw. Yes, the story is clear to me, the message less. Is this movie a
rape revenge? (no, I don't think), a women in prison? (almost), a
sexploitation? (more or less), or simply a feminist ozploitation? (yes,
I would say yes).
Another thing that I did not understand is how this film has aroused
criticism for the scenes of violence and nudity, with the first ones
that do not go beyond to let think of the sense of violence and the
second that are in the style of the nudist films of the old times.
In any case, "Journey among women" gained entry to the list of
Australian films to be preserved in the "National Film and Sound
Archive of Australia's Kodak / Atlab Cinema Collection Restoration
Project".
Written and directed by Tom Cowan, who is most famous as a
cinematographer than ad director, is a film that, according to the
notes, has had an experimental production. In fact, the protagonists
have spent time in the Australian forests creating characters and
situations. One thing that, Cowan says, has generated a strong
friendship but also different moments of tension (maybe of a small
revolt).
Cowan, as mentioned, directs an extremely feminist film, against
violence and repression, but everything remains a bit more narrated
than acted, in a curious but also a bit boring film.
We are in colonial times. We are in an unspecified area of Australia in
which a group of women is kept in prison by soldiers who abuse them
often.
The rich daughter of a judge engaged to one of the soldiers after
seeing a rape decides to help the nine prisoners to flee and above all
to join them.
A female community born that lives in the forest where they learns to
fight, to find food and to live in peace. The military looms and the
inevitable war rise with deaths on both sides. But the ending is
obviously in favour of women
A rather amateur first part in both shooting and acting, leaves room
for a more reasoned and better studied second part, which raises the
level of the film.
In the cast Nell Campbell, that is Columbia of the "Rocky Horror Show" and of the homonymous film.
