FEMALE PERVERSIONS (R)
Director: Susan Streitfield
Stars: Tilda Swinton, Amy Madigan, Karen Sillas, Pauline Porizkova, Clancy Brown, Frances Fisher, Laila Robins, Dale Shuger,
John Diehl
Running Time: 110 minutes.
Greg King interviews Tilda Swinton
Louise J Kaplan's learned but obscure Freudian feminist treatise exploring complex issues of female behaviour and sexuality
would seem to be unusual source material for a feature film. However, first time writer/director Susan Streitfield has managed
to fashion Kaplan's powerful themes and ideas into a coherent and challenging film that explores the darker erotic fantasies,
nightmares and insecurities of the modern woman. A former high powered Hollywood agent and acting coach,
Streitfield was so passionate about the material that she quit her business and spent six years bringing this complex,
multi-layered film to the screen.
Expanding on Kaplan's thesis, Streitfield offers an intense exploration of the provocative concept that females often repress
their normal desires in order to conform to more conventional stereotypes. The film centres around high powered lawyer Eve
Stevens (British actress Tilda Swinton, probably best known for her role as the androgynous hero in Sally Potter's Orlando),
who is on the verge of being appointed to a judgeship when a number of things go wrong in her hitherto rigidly structured
private and professional life, throwing her into a turmoil of self doubt and a crisis of identity. Having long been forced to
suppress her own sexual urges and conform to certain expectations and accepted standards of behaviour because of her
position, Eve tentatively embarks on a fulfilling sexual relationship with Renee (Karen Sillas, from What Happened Was...), the
beautiful psychiatrist who moves into an office down the hall. At the same time, her irresponsible and estranged sister Madelyn
(Amy Madigan, from Field Of Dreams, etc) is arrested for shoplifting on the eve of receiving her doctorate. Eve reluctantly
rushes to her defence, and their tentative reconciliation offers some sort of emotional and physical catharsis for Eve as she
attempts to put her life into perspective. Together they explore a number of deeper family wounds that date back to their
traumatic childhood when they helplessly watched their father cruelly abuse their mother.
Streitfield is often quite clinical in her approach to the subject matter, and although the narrative is fragmented and structured as
a series of complex character studies, she directs with assurance and surprising confidence, drawing strong performances from
an excellent ensemble stars. Swinton, who appears in virtually every scene, delivers a tour de force performance and is utterly
convincing as a woman on the verge of a breakdown. She perfectly captures the mood swings of her character, conveying
both the early strength and confidence and the later crisis and inner turmoil, and her complex performance fittingly dominates
the film. She even manages to capture an American accent perfectly. Madigan and Sillas are also good in support roles.
A decidedly off-beat, psychological drama about sexual roles, gender issues and identity in modern society, Female
Perversions is quite impressive technically, and stylistically the production design and staging is often reminiscent of Derek
Jarman's films. Cinematographer Teresa Medina effectively uses different visual styles and lighting effects to beautifully contrast
Eve's twisted fantasies with the cold hard reality of her suddenly troubled life. Female Perversions is an intelligent, erotically
charged, deliberately stylish and handsomely mounted production that will be of limited appeal to mainstream audiences. In
some ways this film could even be seen as threatening or intimidating to the male ego as, for the most part, Streitfield is dealing
with intelligent and successful women, while all the male roles are secondary, even though the men depicted occupy positions
of relative power.