Film Pioneer Jane Campion Still Ahead of Her Time

“When French filmmaker Julia Ducournau took the Palme d’Or at Cannes this year for Titane, her wild explosion of body horror and gender politics, Jane Campion’s status in film history shifted slightly: no longer the only woman to take the top prize at the festival, the New Zealand writer-director will forevermore be the first. It’s a record that one suspects Campion – as a pioneer in bringing an explicitly feminist perspective to mainstream cinema – couldn’t have been happier to relinquish,” Guy Lodge writes for Variety.

“What a thrill it is to see her gaze again filling the dimensions of a cinema screen: tackling the western genre in The Power of the Dog, her awareness of the tension between vulnerable bodies and a hostile landscape is as acute as it was in The Piano,” Lodge writes.

“Campion’s feminist cinema has always questioned, queered and quietly subverted male authority, and she shows no sign of stopping.”

On 15 October, Campion accepted the Prix Lumière in Lyon, France from Ducournau.

Campion is the 13th Lumière Award recipient, following in the footsteps of the likes of Catherine Deneuve, Jane Fonda, Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, Quentin Tarantino, Gerard Depardieu and Wong Kar-wai.

Original article by Guy Lodge, Variety, October 12, 2021.