About the Programme
Fatal & Fallen looks into the trope of the deadly, fallen, and delinquent woman as pictured in East Asian exploitation films. Spanning the 1970s to late-1980s, the programme examines Japan’s sexploitation films, Taiwan’s Black Movies, Hong Kong’s Girls with Guns and South-Korea’s Hostess and thriller films.
Often overlooked, these examples of cinema feature the underworld of prisons, brothels, and even homes as sites of crime, sexual desire, and revenge. Perverse and extreme, the films reproduce patriarchal and misogynistic representations of women as deranged, delinquent, and racy. Whilst acknowledging the inscription of such problematic representations, Fatal & Fallenattempts to locate the knowledge which arises from the genres by embracing the critical, political, and visceral space of social negativity in film.
By indexing the region’s three decades of socio-political context, expressed in excessive cinematic imagery, the programme encompasses post-war depression, struggling dictatorship, foreign military rule, the Cold War, and rapid industrialisation. Against this backdrop, Fatal & Fallen uncovers the dynamics of power and desire through the bleak yet charged territories of exploitation films.
Accompanied by a public programme that features an online panel discussion and a series of workshops, Fatal & Fallen proposes to recuperate the films by casting new gazes and readings upon them. By negotiating the pain and pleasure in the viewing experience, the constructive and destructive representations of female sexuality and power are reflected upon.
Programme
Woman of Fire (화녀) (1971), dir. Kim Ki-young, South Korea
DOUBLE BILL:
The Women’s Revenge (2020), dir. Su Hui-Yu + Woman Revenger (女性的復仇) (1982), dir. Ouyang Chun, Taiwan
Blind Woman’s Curse (怪談昇り竜) (1970), Teruo Ishii, Japan
Iron Angels (天使行動) (1987), dir. Teresa Woo, Hong Kong
Black Cat (黑貓) (1988), dir: Stephen Shin, Hong Kong
The Challenge of the Lady Ninja (女忍者) (1983), Lee Tso-Nam, Taiwan
Yeong-ja’s Heydays (영자의 전성시대) (1975), dir. Kim Ho-sun, South Korea
Ecstasy of the Angels (天使の恍惚) (1972), Kōji Wakamatsu, Japan
Music for trailer by 落差草原 WWWW / Prairie WWWW
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About the Curators
Jade Barget
As a curator and culture worker based between London and Paris, Jade Barget holds a specific interest in moving image and performance cultures. Her research centers on ubiquity of the moving image and embodied spectatorship. She has curated programmes for institutions such as Nottingham Contemporary (Nottingham), Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (Turin) and Guest Projects (London).
Jade has written for a number of publications including AQNB, diaCRITICS Los Angeles Review of Books, THE SEEN and Untitled-Folder. She graduated from the Curating Contemporary Art department at the Royal College of Art, London with distinctions, and was recipient of the 2020 Young Curator research bursary from the Bureau des Arts Plastiques of the Institut Français and the French Ministry of Culture (Berlin). She is currently in residence at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo as part of the 2021 Young Curator Residency Programme (Turin), and will be a curator in residence at the Cité internationale des Arts (Paris) in 2021-2022.
Elizabeth Gabrielle Lee
Elizabeth Gabrielle Lee is an artist and cultural researcher. Her practice is guided by the iterations of slow violence and the dynamic between the ‘near’ and ‘elsewhere’. In attempting to disarm instruments of knowledge production, her practice shies away from reduction and completion. Steering away from essentialisms, she is interested in once-forgotten micro and muted narratives. By revisioning fractured traditions, she engages with visual and textual interventions to navigate the nuances of perception and retention.
She is an Associate Lecturer in the School of Fine Art & Photography, University for the Creative Arts in Rochester (UK). She has been the recipient of grants from the National Arts Council (Singapore).
XING is a research and curatorial platform centered on the poetics and politics of Southeast Asian art practices. Assuming form of a shapeshifter, it morphs between localities and temporalities; with(in)flux. A space of not-yet possibilities, the platform attempts to dismantle matrices concerned with the region from non-dominant perspectives.
XING was founded by Elizabeth Gabrielle Lee and is now co-run with Jade Barget. Past projects include Bite the tongue; Nameless. echoes, spectres, hisses; Ultraviole(t)nce; Sayang.
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About Reframe
An initiative by the Asian Film Archive (AFA), Reframe is a salon series that aims to bring together diverse audiences and the film community at large through an innovative range of programmes, encouraging dialogue and examining topics surrounding cinema and the moving image.
By asking the hard questions and re-looking at trends and issues critically, the series will construct meaningful frameworks that bring forth multi-perspective viewpoints and an increased appreciation of film and culture.
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The Reframe: Fatal & Fallen programme will run from 10 September to 3 October 2021 at Oldham Theatre.
Tickets for the programme will go on sale Wednesday, 1 September 2021.