Wanda

There is a scene, near the beginning, that shows our main character from a distance walking through mounds of coal to get to her father to ask him for some money. The shot stays on her for what seems like several minutes. The camera simply and slowly pans forwarded as she progresses. Some may say this is boring, others the work of a amateur that doesn't know when to cut. Yet this is a very brilliant shot that shows the true essence of what this film is about and the plight of our character. In life she is constantly walking. Unable to fully grasp the true dissolution of her existence she continues to search for something, anything. She is the victim of life's cruel riddle. A riddle that has no answer.

This is a very sad movie, probably one of the saddest movies you will ever see. It is sad because Wanda's condition is not unique and probably makes up more of the working poor than we care to think. It helps clarify the desperation that people in these circumstances both live and feel. It also helps explain why they will get into such stupid situations and at times make such dumb and illogical choices.

Here drifter Wanda meets up with a two bit crook named Mr Davis. The two create a very odd relationship and actually prove beneficial to each other. She brings out his long dormant tenderness, while he, in one truly touching moment, actually gives her some confidence. Of course it doesn't last, but it is an inspiring piece nonetheless. It shows that even the most pathetic of people, in the most bleakest of situations, can still transcend themselves.

This is actually quite a powerful film. It's very stark, grimy, almost home movie look is actually an asset. No stylized interpretations here. The dingy bars, restaurants, homes, hotels, and factories are all very, very real. You start to feel as trapped in their grayness as the characters. This is a far more billiant and manipulative film than one might initially believe.

At last! An American director who can ingest European influences maturely, not as a superficial and desperate plea for depth. In its tale of a woman drifting through a barren landscape, falling in with abusive or indifferent men; in its distanced style, its pared down performances and dialogue, its long takes of nothing in particular, or rather, of everything, of life, mundane actions, of people looking and finding and doing; in its use of the crime genre for anti-generic and anti-narrative ends; in its restrained use of religious symbolism culminating in an enigmatic scene in a catacombs, one is reminded of Bresson - less rigorous, maybe, but less misogynistic too, more open.

The central relationship and road movie format reminds me of 'La Strada'; the bank robbery an absurdist take on 'Gun Crazy'. Mostly, this is a wonderful one-off, and it is a real crime that its maker only made this one film, while her husband was allowed over twenty.

...WANDA is nonetheless a stirring portrait of a woman who has lost her direction in life; that is, assuming she wasn't just going through the societally-mandated paces from the start, which I suspect.

Abandoning her husband and children without a second thought, she sets off on a journey to...nowhere in particular. Latching ignobly onto any man who will pick her up for a quickie, Wanda, played with remarkable veracity by the film's director Barbara Loden, drifts for a while until she stumbles upon a nomadic, dyspeptic robber, whom she meekly accompanies in his run from the law. After a series of escalating events which could have led to tragedy for her, Wanda is given a reprieve. Instead of taking advantage of her second chance, her detached indolence is too strong to overcome, and the cycle of soul-searching is apparently ordained to continue ad infinitum.

Recalling such contemporary cinematic works as FIVE EASY PIECES (1970), A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE (1974), the great GOIN' DOWN THE ROAD (1970), and TWO-LANE BLACKTOP (1971) in its characters' aimlessness and blind existentialism, "Wanda" also has echoes of Bresson's oeuvre; most of all, the film seems to have been a direct influence on Susan Seidelman's SMITHEREENS (1982), an equally good picture.

To the film's detriment, its characters are such pathetic no-hopers that they are not easy to relate to, especially since they are given no biographical framework whatsoever. Moreover, the cinema verite direction is a little too self-consciously austere, lingering unduly on some scenes. Loden seems unaware of the misconception that merely letting the camera run on automatically lends a scene profundity; sometimes the film seems as hollow as its characters. Then again, that's the point. I liked "Wanda" quite a bit, but it takes patience to tease out its nuances, and is hence not for all tastes.

Saw 3/13/17, TCM on demand. Robert Bresson/Chantal Akerman/Frederick Wiseman come to the Pennsylvania coal country. "Wanda" prophetically showcases a world inhabited by a class of people Charles Murray would write about forty years later, as neglected and marginalized then as now. Maybe it's not a film for everybody, but I found myself involved in Wanda's story, a tale of drabness set in a world in a state of persistent, low-energy panic. Loden placed supreme confidence in camera, microphone, story, and her people. And the movie worked for me. The film TCM showed had been lovingly restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive in 2010.

Sheez, what a depressing film. I think a lot of people can identify with it. A woman has no direction and no hope. She just sinks lower and lower without anyone to help her.

The film is slow and has quite a few unneccesary scenes, just like Wanda's life.

It is amazing a woman got this project made and was allowed to direct. I'm glad it exists as tribute to her. She passed away far too young. I hope her life wasn't as bleak as this story.