documentary. drama / United States / 82’ / Color / status : completed / English / Feature Documentary / International collections
Trailblazing filmmaker Martha Coolidge made her feature debut with this unflinchingly personal hybrid of documentary and fiction. Centered on an intense reenactment of Coolidge’s experience of rape in her adolescence, the film casts Michele Manenti (also a survivor) as the director’s younger self, and observes the actor and her castmates as they engage in a profound dialogue about what it means to recreate these traumatic memories, and about their attitudes concerning consent and self-blame. A high-stakes experiment in metacinema that broke new ground with its uncompromising examination of date rape, NOT A PRETTY PICTURE brings a stunning immediacy to questions about the on-screen representation of sexual violence and the limits of artistic catharsis.
Press
«The film is transmitting both knowledge about a culture of abuse, and about the resistance to that culture through the innovative use of the language of cinema. And how that makes a great movie. NOT A PRETTY PICTURE feels strikingly close to contemporary narratives and the reflexive politics around the gaze. It means it contributed to inventing them all.»
Céline Sciamma
«NOT A PRETTY PICTURE announced Martha Coolidge as a major new talent.»
IndieWire
«Its blend of documentary and dramatic filmmaking, of first-person reflection and renactment, sets a standard for cinematic inquiry into the political implications of personal experience.»
Richard Brody, The New Yorker
