You Can't Beat a Woman!
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Canada, 1997 (documentary, 96 minutes, colour, English)
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Also known as
"No pots apallissar una dona!"
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| Image: © National Film Board of Canada |
Film Description:
"A documentary with a punch, You Can't Beat a Woman
delves into violence against women, journeying to six very different
countries. In segments shot in Canada, Russia, Israel, South Africa, Chile
and Japan, women survive their violent relationships with men. Reclaiming
their lives from experiences of rape, incest and verbal and physical abuse,
they search for sources of healing. Sometimes shocking, sometimes
uplifting, the film presents a provocative perspective on the universal issue
of women's human rights."
-- National Film Board of Canada
(source)
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| Film Credits (partial): |
| Written by: |
Gail Singer |
| Produced by: |
Joe MacDonald, Gail Singer, Ches Yetman, Graydon McCrea |
| Narrator: |
Gail Singer |
| Film Editing: |
David New |
| Music: |
Donald Quan |
| Production Company: |
National Film Board of Canada / Office national du film du Canada |
(sources)
Quotes about You Can't Beat a Woman!
"You don't want [You Can't Beat a Woman] to stop—and this is a film about violence against women! The simple point is that [Gail] Singer knows how to make a film. She is not afraid of entertaining, and in fact she knows very well that her audiences deserve credit for already knowing how bad it is out there—in Chile, in Japan and in Manitoba. The subject needs attention, and since it is not disappearing as a social evil, Singer advances our understanding of violence by inspecting its representation, even if it is sometimes painful to do so. Typically, Singer shoots herself a number of times in the rumpled hotel beds of morning, the sheets pulled over her head in grumpy denial. We should all be grateful that she managed to face the cheery light of another day. Not surprisingly, You Can't Beat a Woman! uses its time in the company of some remarkable women not only to tell how they have survived but how they are smiling all the way into their futures."
-- Noreen Golfman
(source)
"A feature-length documentary about battered women may not sound like your idea of a good time, but Gail Singer is a witty, irreverent film director with a knack for confounding expectations. You Can't Beat a Woman, which opens at Toronto's Carlton Cinema in mid-January and will also turn up shortly in Winnipeg, Vancouver and Ottawa, is far from the grim ordeal you might expect, given the topic. Singer has been tracking this subject for the better part of two decades. In 1979, she made a 25-minute film called Loved, Honored and Bruised, in which an abused Winnipeg woman named Jeannie Fox and her husband talked with startling candor about their own domestic violence. A few years ago, the National Film Board asked Singer to make a full-length documentary on the subject of wife-battering, but she realized that a solemn, straightforward approach would no longer work."
-- Martin Knelman
(source)
"You Can't Beat a Woman [is] a sprawling, long, ambitious
take on the theme of domestic violence and recovery. It crosses five
continents, lasts 94 minutes and has actually devoured her 1977 film
[Loved, Honoured and Bruised] which is deconstructed in the
first half-hour of this new film. In many ways, it is a film about films about
wife battering."
-- Doug Saunders
(source)
Bibliography for You Can't Beat a Woman!
Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites
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Golfman, Noreen. "You Can't Beat a Woman." Review of You Can't Beat a Woman!. Canadian Forum, September 1997.
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Knelman, Martin. "You can't beat a woman." Review of You Can't Beat a Woman!. Financial Post Magazine, January 1998.
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Saunders, Doug. "Different take on wife abuse: In
person: Gail Singer's second documentary on domestic violence debuts
today at Montreal's festival." Interview with Gail Singer. Globe and Mail, August 28, 1997.
Web Sites about You Can't Beat a Woman!
