Ce que je sais d'elle... d'un simple regard

This film consists of several different stories that are very loosely connected to each other. I was drawn into each individual story but would have liked to have known more about them. What would have made this film really good in my opinion is if there had been a single strong story line woven through all the stories; an interconnection that would have kept the coincidence intact, but would have made it an unseparable whole. That is what I missed. I am very happy though that at the end there was a kind of closing to each of the stories, but that really deserved more time. So a good film, with interesting characters and good portrayals, but it lacked the depth and interconnection that it made me both expect and hope to find.

Things you can tell just by looking at her

In Things you can tell just by looking at her we meet several women who for different reasons seem to be playing bit parts in their own lives. One of them takes care of her mother in a big lonely house, Rebecca stops listening to her own feelings because a baby does not fit into the life of her married lover, Rose discovers that her son is growing up, Calista's girlfriend is dying and ? takes care of her blind sister.

After watching the film I thought: what does this film want to tell us about women? Or perhaps people in general. Some of the lines in the film stuck in my mind: The blind girl says about the woman who committed suicide: `I bet you could tell just by looking at her that there was a man involved.' When giving this line some thought I starting seeing the film as a comment on `loneliness' in general. What do people really want? They want to be involved with people. They want other people to see them.

The film suggests that when people don't depend on anyone anymore when they have no one `to be' for - they chose to actually become nothing to die. The loneliness at the heart of existence is too hard to bear. I think the film is about the nature of making connections and being involved with other people although it is painful and sometimes lead to self-sacrifice. It shows us the horror which is tied with the fear of being left alone, although the connections which are made does little to remove the feeling of loneliness. It is the horror of a stranger walking into your personal sphere and immediately being able to see through you and see what lies beneath the surface. It is the horror of revealing your interest in other people - looking in on other peoples lives, in a desperate attempt to connect and to become involved. It is the horror of becoming involved with someone who cannot stay, the horror of losing those whom you connect with. When you are involved, and when you connect with someone, you face the danger of being hurt, being dumped - of sacrificing your own life in your care for others. It is the horror also that your sacrifice is not appreciated, the horror that when you are no longer a lover or a mother then you will certainly become nothing that your identity is so intricately tied with the dependence of those who need you that you cannot be `you' if they don't need you anymore. It is ultimately the horror of being defined by relations of interdependence where the people you care for in effect give you identity. It is the horror that you really are nothing without other people to mirror yourself in.

Why is this form of `self-sacrifice' then particular to women? We learn from Walter's daughter that when he really gets involved `He dumps them like a hot potato'. Are women victims and easy to exploit? Rose's teenage son confides that people `are always' looking for someone. But is the act of making these connections and becoming involved truly more important to women - truly more essential in their attempt at becoming someone - of gaining an identity. Are women always characterized by either being cared for or being the ones who take care of others? Interestingly, none of these women are wives - they are defined by other types of relationships than those that arise between man and wife.

I do not think I can answer these questions and I don't think the film wants to answer them either. But I think the film is a point of departure for discussing the nature of being - and the way we all perhaps depend upon others in order to become.

7/10

Writer/director Rodrigo Garcia's feature film debut "Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her" might have a jarring, if too long, title, but the son of Gabriel Garcia Marquez presents a passionate work of cinematic fiction. The film presents several short stories; snapshots of women at a crossroads. One story is of a doctor who has lost sight of spiritual meaning in her life, and has elicited the assistance of a tarot card reader to help her find her way. This card reader may assist people with getting through the future with clarity, but she has one foot in the past as she watches her girlfriend succumb to a debilitating disease.

Each story intersects and overlaps the others in unique and interesting ways. The all-star cast of female talent bring to their deliberately under drawn characters some of their strongest performances, especially Calista Flockhart (at the time, fresh from "Ally McBeal") who provides her psychic character with fairy-like innocence, Kathy Baker who brings good-natured humorous curiosity to a role that could have quickly become a sociopath stalker, and Holly Hunter in an understated performance as a bank owner who contemplates the ramifications of motherhood on her life.

This film is very slow but never boring and that's a remarkable feat. The acting is superb and the stories are emotional but never too sentimental. Just some more or less tragic women's stories in modern-day life.

Of course, there are many politically correct moves, like the lesbian couple, the black husband, the blind girl, the dwarf and the beggarwoman, but this is not really annoying. The only thing that I found a bit out of reality were the overly smart kids (i.e. Rose's son and the blind daughter).

All in all, good work on women's issues by male director.

This was okay, I can't fault any of the performances and the 5 (loosely) interconnected stories are well written, imaginative (in a creative writing type way) and interesting however it still failed to grab me on any level or leave a lasting impression.

The vignettes all deal with dramatic developments in the lives of a diverse group of women, most of whom are lonely and or unhappy. All the performances are fantastic and at times raw opening with Glenn Close as a doctor looking after her invalid mother, Holly Hunter as a bank manager dealing with an unplanned pregnancy and an observant street woman, Kathy Baker as a single mother debating a romance with a new neighbour, Calista Flockhart is a tarot reader whose girlfriend is dying of cancer and police detective Amy Brenneman examines her loneliness when her blind sister Cameron Diaz begins dating.

There are some beautifully shot scenes here especially the outdoor ones although I was distracted by the random black cloudiness that appeared at the top of the screen from time to time. Like most people I thought there was something wrong with my copy of the movie. Not sure what that was supposed to signify.

I also think this could have benefited from more of an arc tying all the stories together (like the suicide woman) as it was I failed to see any connection. 5/31/15