Sexual Cinema

Think Freewater on Fridays is the only time to see great, often deliciously obscure films for free? Check the Union calendar and think again. Film series continue throughout the semester, often co-sponsored by a department or relevant student groups. The themes are diverse, from "Cult Films at Midnight" on Fridays to the French Film Series to "Documenting Sexualities: New Titles in Gender and Sexuality." There are the occasional glitches--AmZlie, France's charming, wildly popular and highest grossing domestic film ever, drew a large crowd, only to see it disperse after realizing the subtitles, like the dialogue, were in French. But the films Freewater screens offer the Duke community a chance to both experience different uses of film and the different perspectives they offer.

The Documenting Sexualities film series, for instance, deals with a variety of gender and sexuality issues through films like Alfred Hitchcock's classic, Vertigo, to Richard Montgomery's Lady in the Lake, which employs only one point of view onscreen--from the protagonist's crotch. The next film, showing April 4 in Griffith Film Theater at 8pm, is Kim Longinotto and Jano Williams's Gaea Girls, which chronicles the training of potential female wrestlers in Japan. The film focuses both on the regimen, which is physically and mentally exhausting, and on two of the less likely hopefuls--one with spectacularly low self-esteem, one unmotivated and unfit. The filmmakers take an objective approach take an objective approach to their subjects, showing both the violence in the ring and the training that got them there. Do they make it? You'll have to stop by Griffith to find out.