Scripted by and starring Jane Arden, Separation concerns the inner life of a woman during a period of breakdown – marital, and possibly mental. Her past and (possible?) future are revealed through a fragmented but brilliantly achieved and often humorous narrative, in which dreams and desires are as real as the ‘swinging’ London of the film’s setting, complete with Procol Harum music and Mark Boyle projections.Read More »
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A complex and fascinating experimental exploration of time and identity. Anti-Clock is a film of authentic, startling originality.
Brilliantly mixing cinema and video techniques, Arden and Bond have created a movie that captures the anxiety and sense of danger that has infiltrated the consciousness of so many people in western society.
Filled with high tension and high intelligence, Anti-Clock is mysterious, disturbing, fascinating and exciting’. (Jack Kroll, Newsweek)Read More »
Filmmaker Jack Bond and Salvador Dali got together at Christmas 1965 to make Dali in New York, a highly entertaining film. Dali devoted two weeks of his life to creating extraordinary scenes for the film, performing “manifestations” with a plaster cast, a thousand ants and one million dollars in cash. When he confronts the feminist writer, Jane Arden, sparks fly. “You are my slave!”. “I am not your slave”. “Everybody is my slave”.Read More »
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Jane Arden’s The Other Side of the Underneath is a seriously disturbing film. It is also an uncharacteristically bold one. I think that in a lot of ways it is quite similar to Bernardo Bertollucci’s Partner (1968), a film about a young revolutionary, played by Pierre Clementi, whose life changes dramatically when a double appears and foils his plan to commit suicide. In the opening scene of The Other Side, a schizophrenic woman (Sheila Allen, The Legend of Spider Forest) is pulled out of a lake and placed in an asylum.
The film is based on director Arden’s “A New Communion for Freaks, Prophets and Witches”, a play she staged with the Holocaust women’s theatre troupe. It is comprised of a number of different episodes, each exploring a specific theme – female exploitation, voyeurism, sexual deprivation, etc. The Other Side is also a reflection of its creator’s brush with madness.
The key concept behind The Other Side is intriguing. The film argues that madness is part of a cycle that leads to sanity. It also stresses that this complex process is often misunderstood by those who have never experienced madness. Cultural and societal taboos are cited amongst the main reasons for its existence.Read More »