Directed by: Barbara Loden.
Written by: Barbara Loden.
Starring: Barbara Loden (Wanda Goronski), Michael Higgins (Norman Dennis).
Barbara
Loden’s Wanda (1970) is one of those rare great films made by a director who
only ever directed one film. Like Charles Laughton’s Night of the Hunter
(1955), it is a singular vision – a movie that cannot be put into the larger
context of the director’s career, because it is essentially their entire
directing career. And Wanda is a great film, which makes it all the more sad
that Loden died too young – at age 48 – before she ever made a follow-up film.
Yet, considering that her death came 13 years after making Wanda – and that the
film was essentially never got a proper theatrical release, she may never have had
a chance to direct again. Sadder still that 42 years after Wanda, female
directors are still woefully under-represented in Hollywood. A film like Wanda
is a good argument for why that so desperately needs to change. Here is a film
written and directed by a woman, about a woman, that is more honest about women
that practically any film written and directed by a man ever could be.
When
we first see Wanda (Loden herself), she is waking up from her sister’s couch.
In the sad opening scenes of Wanda, we see her go to her dad for money, get
rejected from a job by her onetime boss (“You’re just too slow to be any good
for us”), and go to court to grant her husband a divorce and custody of their
children. She has essentially abandoned her children – a charge she doesn’t
refute – and doesn’t much seem to care either. She spends most of this time
with her hair still in curlers.
The
one constant in her life is alcohol. The movie takes place deep in Pennsylvania
coal country, and she isn’t the only one whose life seems to revolve around
alcohol – but she is the only character who has trouble thinking about anything
else. Her pattern involves going to a bar and leaving with whatever man will
have her for the night. The first time this happens, it is a painfully sad scene,
as her “date” for the night tries to sneak out of the hotel room they shared
without her noticing, as she desperately chases him down to get a ride back to
town.
It
is at one of these bars where she meets Norman Dennis (Michael Higgins). She
walks in close to closing time, and thinks Norman is the bartender. In fact, he
is robbing the bar, and she’s just a little slow on the uptake. She’ll leave
with him as well – and spend most of the rest of the movie with him. Norman is
not a very good criminal, and certainly not a very nice guy – he has no problem
smacking Wanda when she pisses him off. But Wanda sticks around anyway. In
part, it’s because this is her pattern – sticking around with whatever man she
goes home with for as long as he wants her around. And in part, because no
matter his cruelty towards her, he may be the only person who has ever told
Wanda that he “believes” she can do something. Norman has a plan – not a very
good one as it turns out – to rob a bank, and needs her help to do it. She says
she cannot do it – she even throws up because of the nerves (and probably, the
alcohol), but he tells her she can do it. The plan involves them both driving
to the bank manager’s house, and Norman riding with him to work, so when he
opens the vault, he can get the money. Wanda is to follow in their getaway car,
and pick Norman up when he comes out. Wanda screws it up – of course – but it
doesn’t really matter that she did, because Norman screwed up his end even
worse. But, Wanda doesn’t know this, which sets up the painfully sad final
scenes of the movie.
Wanda
is a fascinating film because it refuses to see its title character in terms we
are used to seeing. Wanda isn’t a victim – everything that happens to her, she
essentially does to herself, or allows them to be done to her. She isn’t some
proto-feminist hero either – like in some movies about women who throw off the
chains of marriage and mothering can be. Wanda doesn’t abandon her children in
some sort of effort to break free – but rather because she is selfish woman,
who would rather be drinking than raising her own children.
What
Wanda is though, is trapped. She doesn’t really know what it is that she wants
to do, she just knows what she doesn’t want to do. Whether she’s trapped in her
marriage, or trapped living on her sister’s couch, or trapped forever repeating
the pattern of going home with men she meets in bars, she doesn’t see any other
options for herself in her limited life, in her limited small town. For a
while, with Norman, she seems to be able to break free. They are like a much
more incompetent Bonnie and Clyde, but drained of all romanticism of Arthur
Penn’s masterpiece. All they really want is “stuff” – because without it, they
see themselves as nothing.
Loden
as a writer, director and star sees Wanda clearly. The writing is very matter
of fact, only giving us the details of these two characters’ lives that we
need. The direction is certainly inspired by documentaries and the
neo-realists. There is not a trace of sentimentality in the movie, although by
the final haunting image in the film, it is impossible not to feel sympathy
towards Wanda, even after everything we have seen of her up to this point.
Wanda is a legitimately great film, and sadly, the only one Loden ever made. An
under rated, little seen classic.
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