vol. 4, issue 1: risk Archives - cléo

vol. 4, issue 1: risk

cléo journal — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 17:35:02 +0000

For the tenth issue of cléo, we’re marking this milestone by thinking about leaps of faith, great failures and huge gains. We’re talking about what motivates us to take a chance on potentially losing it all in order to reap future rewards, or perhaps just a fleeting moment of pleasure or glory. Then there’s the […]

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Editor’s Note: Risk

kiva reardon — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 14:34:56 +0000

Three years ago, a group of women decided that starting a feminist film journal was a risk they wanted to take. They were willing to put their names behind something that would call out sexism, critique the industry they worked in, and do it all on the internet, a place that’s never been friendly to […]

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Permission, Power, and Privilege: An Interview with Kirsten Johnson

rooney hassan — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 14:34:28 +0000

“You’re making me cry even though I don’t understand the language.” Wanderlust. It’s a bug that bites us all, and yet very few have the privilege of their passport resembling a makeshift United Nations souvenir. Legendary cinematographer Kirsten Johnson (Citizenfour, Pray the Devil Back to Hell, The Oath) has been so lucky, and in her […]

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Sicario: Blunt Force Trauma

mallory andrews — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 14:33:49 +0000

“A friend and I were just saying about Villeneuve the other day that he really doesn’t care what he’s directing as long as it shows off his abs.” – Wesley Morris, Grantland In the rollout of reviews for Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario (2015), understandable attention has been paid to the casting of Emily Blunt as FBI […]

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The Advantageous, Neoliberal Dream of The Self-Sacrificing Mother

kelley dong — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 14:32:35 +0000

“We do what is best for our children.” Maternal sacrifice is typically portrayed as an individual act, somewhere in between triumphant (The Blind Side) and tragic (Sophie’s Choice), and nearly always painful. These sacrifices, however, are rarely considered in relation to the vague backdrop of the outside world. (Think of the recent Room, where a […]

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“I knew I had to stop, but I didn’t care”: Catherine Breillat’s Abuse of Weakness

colleen kelsey — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 14:31:33 +0000

For those accustomed to defining their personhood solely in relation to the mind, a rupture in the body can come as an indelible shock. Such is the devastation that opens Catherine Breillat’s 2014 film Abuse of Weakness. In a composed overhead shot that begins with a painterly expanse of abstracted white forms, Breillat widens our […]

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Escape from Late Capitalism: Fish Tank and Two Days One Night

ké kampeas-rittenhouse — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 14:29:48 +0000

“If you could be any animal, what would you be?” “A white tiger.” – Mia, Fish Tank “I don’t exist. I’m nothing, nothing at all.” – Sandra, Two Days One Night Unlike most poor or working class “everyman” characters, the body labouring under capitalism’s long shadow in Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank (2009) and the Dardenne […]

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Anna May Wong: Classic Starlet, Trailblazer, and Badass Risk Taker

michelle kay — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 14:29:00 +0000

In an opening scene of Shanghai Express (1932), a pinch-faced boarding house owner lectures two of her lodgers, a pair of courtesans named Hui Fei (Anna May Wong) and Shanghai Lily (Marlene Deitrich), about respectability. Appalled by Lily’s sauciness, the mistress of the house, Mrs. Haggarty (Louise Closer Hale), asks of Hui Fei: “I’m sure […]

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“Merry Fucking Christmas”: The Gift of Collaboration in Tangerine

willow maclay — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 14:27:14 +0000

With a devilish grin and a wry look in her eyes, Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) strides out of a banana-coloured diner with one goal in mind: revenge. Sin-Dee has just been released from prison and, after catching-up with her best pal Alexandra (Mya Taylor), learns that her boyfriend, Chester (James Ransone), has cheated on her […]

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Women to Watch: Iris Ng

sara black mcculloch — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 14:26:06 +0000

Filmmaking is a collaborative endeavour but we commemorate the final output by recognizing only a small number of people. We never fail to remember the directors, actors and the scriptwriters who pen quippy one-liners, but our collective memory excludes the many contributors hiding in plain sight. Cinematographers, for instance, have long collaborated with directors to […]

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