When I'm a Moth

I saw this film at its premiere (2019 San Francisco Film Festival). It's an unusual film in that it is based on a little-known real event in Hillary Rodham's life: in 1969, just after graduating from Wellesley, in the summer before Yale Law School, she went to Valdez, Alaska, and worked in a fish-packing plant. She didn't stay long, and that's about all anyone knows about that short adventure.

Zachary Cotler used this thin biographical thread to write what he calls an "un-biopic." WHEN I'M A MOTH is entirely fictional. It speaks about career, destiny, power, and the fiction one must agree to live in order to become part of the American political system.

Directed by Cotler and Magdalena Zyzak, the photography is terrific, and the acting is superb. This is a deep, thoughtful film about the beginnings of a political life. It may not truly be about Hillary Rodham (whose name is never mentioned in the film), but it's definitely about goals and ambition...the drivers of any political life.

I fear the time period for trying insightful, poetic, arthouse films has passed.

This seemed like a slow burn too early on in the film for me. I didn't 'get' the opening extended shot of gutting fish, other than for artistic choices. I am curious why the filmmakers decided to choose Hilary Clinton as their subject matter when it is slates as 'an un-biopic' - nothing factual or real happens other than she travelled abroad and got fired for gutting fish too slow.

Why the introspective arthouse daze that borders on boredom and draws out far too long, to choose this character to center the film on. Was it for views? To draw people in? That may have been a factor and a slightly smart one at that. But she could have easily been anyone.

A star for the pretty cinematography. Everything else, I couldn't get behind. Appreciate the opportunity to see the film though.