Eight Great Films at BAMcinemaFest’s Opening Weekend
A Woman, A Part
Directed by Elisabeth Subrin
For her feature debut, Subrin forsakes the experimentalism of her short films and video installations for a relatively conventional narrative and storytelling grammar. No matter: A Woman, A Part is compelling all the same as it dives into the mind of a Hollywood star, Anna (Maggie Siff), at a professional and personal crossroads, struggling to snap out of her current drug-addicted, disillusioned funk by returning to New York and reconnecting with former theater cohorts Isaac (John Ortiz) and Kate (Cara Seymour). But neither of them have done any better at following through on their initial burst of artistic enthusiasm: Kate has escaped from the theatrical limelight to become a yoga instructor, while Isaac has become a domesticated married man. This loss of idealism lends Subrin’s film an air of mournfulness even as tensions heat up between these three characters as a result of Isaac’s attempts to produce his new play based on their lives. The film’s anonymizing title is wholly appropriate for a film that’s all about a character disassembling her life in order to find a new identity for herself—or, at the very least, a renewal of creative energies. Kenji Fujishima (Screens June 19, 6:45pm, followed by Q&A with Subrin, Siff and Seymour; currently without distribution)