Femalaise

Programmed by: Ursula Wagner

There are innumerable iconic films that follow a man as he navigates the world with a vague sense of unease accompanied by aimlessness and detachment. Yet for all the taxi drivers, graduates, and jokers, it is less common to see a similar dynamic on screen in a female lead. Female characters are often written in correspondence with the general expectations placed on women in society: that they will happily fulfill caretaking functions in both domestic and professional settings. In the hands of the right filmmaker, however, it is these exact societal constrictions that catalyze some of the best examples of cinematic malaise. This series eschews outside assumptions or fantasies about women’s inner lives, allowing mostly female screenwriters and directors to tell the stories of women who suddenly feel unmoored from their interpersonal and moral roles. Crucially, it also surveys women’s experiences of unease across cultures and continents, with films representing women not just throughout the United States, but also in Argentina, the Soviet Union, Senegal, and, of course, France. Because while the French can lay claim to coining the term (literally “ill-ease”), malaise seems to be a universal human experience.