Itunes/Amazon Prime (2018)
In the midst of the Me Too and Times Up movements, wrought by years of abuse at the hands of accused (and some convicted) perpetrators the likes of Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Charlie Rose, Matt Lauer, Roger Aiels, Pat O’Reilly and too many others to mention, comes a feminist rebellion, a rebel cry, loud and stark and unrelenting in its refusal to yield in the face of a nearly omnipotent patriarchy that hates women in general and one woman in particular – Joanne (Alex Reid) the single character in a powerful film that’s true to its title – The Bellwether.
A bellwether is a harbinger of things go come, which are often reckonings that are well overdo. The Bellwether, starring Alex Reid (The Descent) in a number of excellent performances as different aspects of “womanhood” is written and directed by a woke man, Christopher Morrison, which in itself may suggest a sort of awaking. Boys generally don’t make films like this. Generally.
The film is effectively a one character, one room drama featuring Reid as various aspects of a woman called Joanne, who awakes (literally) to find herself in room, large and Gothic, with single, heavy wooden door that is locked. There is a monitor – an interrogator as it were – on which words and images appear. The images are from her entire life, video and photos that tell the story of Joanne. Words that pose questions about and cast aspersions on the nature of her life as a independent women, lover, daughter and person. There is a loud, piercing shriek that makes her eardrums bleed when the powers who have detained her dain to punish her “unwillingness” to face the “truth” of her life, as defined by them – or more specifically – as defined by men.
Yet, the deeper battle that Joanne faces is with those aspects of herself, manifest in the film as vengeance and motherhood, etc., all played by Reid in the appropriate garb and with the appropriate attitude – mostly belligerence – to the notion of acquiescence to anything any man wants – period. These aspects of self are at battle with both the “big brother” that has imprisoned them, and each other. This is a film knows that sometimes we undermine ourselves by inclination or conditioning and it wants us to deal with ourselves as well as our oppressors.
It’s all wonderfully Jungian – and sharply pointed.
The Bellwether was developed and shot in Brussels, Belgium. Reid is a British actress and Morrison developed the concept of the film well before the events of the Me Too and Time’s Up movements, yet it is as timely and relevant as if it were conceived as a mascot movie for the movements. The Bellwether shouts from every concept of womanhood – Me Too and Time’s Fucking Up!