As we trudge through the tail end of another bracing Maine winter toward the flickering promise of a slowly approaching Spring, what better way to keep your spirits up than with a selection of movies about strong, fearless women getting things done. This week’s picks include women taming hawks, women fighting or equal rights, lady vampires, and one woman who turns into a chair. Just trust us.
‘H Is for Hawk’
Starting February 27, Strand Theater, 245 Main Street., Rockland, rocklandstrand.com.
Grief transforms us in ways we’d never have expected. In this film based on Helen Macdonald’s memoir of the same name, an academic (Claire Foy) responds to the death of her birdwatcher father (the great Brendan Gleeson) by bonding with a bird of prey named Mabel, learning the ancient art of falconry, and processing her loss through the most unlikely (and cantankerous) of friendships. Foy, known to most as ‘The Crown’”s Queen Elizabeth II, is as typically majestic as her imposing feathered co-star, delivering another in a career’s-worth of great performances.
‘Nadja’
March 2, Space, 534 Congress St., Portland, space538.org.
The late-great David Lynch saw a kindred spirit in indie director Michael Almerayda (‘Marjorie Prime,’ the Ethan Hawke ‘Hamlet’), fully financing this strikingly odd 1994 vampire flick. Glorious black-and-white visuals (partly shot on a toy Fisher Price “pixelvision” camera) underscore the director’s woozy take on the bloodsucker myth, with Dracula’s alluring daughter (Hal Hartley alum Elina Löwensohn) strolling the streets of present-day New York, dodging Peter Fonda’s crazed Dr. Van Helsing, pursuing her twin brother (Jared Harris), and inspiring all manner of hypnotized New Yorkers to follow her to their inevitable doom. It’s the sort of artsy, deadpan funny, visually enticing indie experiment only a cinematic oddball like Lynch (also on hand as a morgue attendant) could love. (Note: I love it.)
‘The Shop on Main Street’
March 4 and March 7, Kinonik, 12 Cassidy Point Drive, Portland. kinonik.org
A racist, fascist government targets a vulnerable population, forcing “good” citizens into more and more impossible moral choices. If any of that sounds familiar, then the film preservationists at Kinonik haver an instructive foreign classic for you. Czech director Ján Kadár’s alternately charming and heartbreaking film (winner of the 1965 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar) takes place during the “Aryanization” purges in a Nazi-occupied small town. An apolitical carpenter is tasked with taking over the shop of a confused Jewish widow, only to befriend the old woman, at least until he realizes the government is preparing to round up the town’s Jews for the concentration camps. Under the thuggery of fascism, there is no sitting on the sidelines, no safe choices, and this film has never been more timely.
March 7, The Gem, 48 Cross St., Bethel, thegemtheater.com.
Writing this as I am during yet another February Maine snow-pocalypse, it’s tough to imagine choosing to hit the nearest hiking trail. (Spring is coming, gang, just hang in there.) But the intrepid outdoorsy types know that there’s no greater pleasure than showering yourself in bug spray, packing your water bottle and some gorp and striding out for a day of Maine’s boundless, woodsy adventuring. This selection of short films about the joys of outside walking and trail-building has you covered, with 90 minutes of gorgeously shot hiking goodness from the Pacific Northwest to the Himalayas. (All presented safely inside where it’s warm.)
‘The Day Iceland Stood Still’
March 8, PMA Films, 7 Congress Square, Portland, portlandmuseum.org/films.
On October 24, 1975, 90 percent of the women of Iceland stopped working. Protesting unequal rights and pay, nearly every woman in the county walked off jobs, stopped cooking and cleaning at home, and left the country’s men to deal with the kids for a while, leading to a massive demonstration in the country’s capitol and, a year later, sweeping equal rights legislation in parliament. Collective action works is the point, the eternal theme of this cheeky, inspirational documentary about the day an entire country’s female population showed just how screwed society is without them. As one woman stated at the time, “We loved our male chauvinist pigs—we just wanted to change them a little.”
‘By Design’
March 9, Space, 534 Congress St., Portland, space538.org.
Have you ever watched life pass hurriedly past you and think, “I may as well be a piece of furniture?” Well, Juliette Lewis’ character in this indie gem from director Amanda Kramer sure has, as she envies the solitary perfection of a sleek, modernist chair so much, she swaps places with it—and discovers that her friends and family like the chair better. Think the body-swap comedies of the 80’s (“Vice Versa,” “Like Father Like Son”) except with a lady and a chair, and replace the wacky shenanigans with a surrealist fable about identity, loneliness, and women’s inner longing.
‘Cutting Through Rocks’
March 11, Space, 534 Congress St., Portland, space538.org.
Sara Shahverdi is a divorced, motorcycle-riding midwife and advocate for women’s rights who was elected councilwoman of her staunchly conservative village council in Iran on a platform of stopping child marriage and basically encouraging young women to be as fearless and kick-ass as she. This new documentary (an award winner at Sundance) presents a world tottering on the brink of another needless war with a portrait of an Iranian woman whose courageousness and outrageousness in the face of oppression is an inspiration to everyone, everywhere.
Dennis Perkins is a freelance writer who lives in Auburn with his wife and his cat.