pinku eiga<\/em> (\u201cpink film\u201d) pros including K\u00f4ji Wakamatsu, to the psychosexual obsessions of South Korean Ki-young Kim\u2019s housemaids and the campy vampires of Jes\u00fas Franco.<\/p>\n![\"Auto](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Auto-Italia-Nature-of-the-Hunt-002.jpg\")
“Nature of the Hunt”, Auto Italia, 2017. Image: Corey Battle-Sanderson \/ Theo Cook<\/p>\n
From the street, seven weapon-wielding women can be seen posing side-by-side in a blow-up poster of the Taiwanese action-adventure “Golden Queen Commando” (1982). This playful prop appropriately conceals the more subversive film essay playing on loop in the darkened back room of the gallery. Clocking in at under half an hour, the video offers a collage of scenes from around two dozen exploitation films. Bains\u2019 own voice weaves in intermittently over the muted clips to offer a larger analysis of the social and cultural symbolism of these films and question their underlying motives. Through Bains\u2019 unwavering criticism, the hysteria of these monstrous women develops an emotional vulnerability, morphing from villain to victim \u2013 all while their bodies convulse and evaporate, imploding into abject potions of blood, slime, and fear: the torturous and nebulous power structures of the patriarchy.
\nIs there any way out of this stereotype of the raging female, whose origins and psychosexual neuroses are simultaneously feared and invalidated by the male gaze? Is it possible to subvert the phallocentric understandings of the feminine penchant for violence, as driven by unfulfilled desire? In a sub-genre characterised by this deep-rooted misogyny, is there any space to re-claim the agency of the female monster?<\/p>\n
![\"Auto](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Auto-Italia-Nature-of-the-Hunt-004.jpg\")
Angela Goh, “Body Loss”, performed as part of “Nature of the Hunt”, Auto Italia, 2017. Image: Katarzyna Perlak<\/p>\n
Essentially, yes. The game is changing, Bains suggests during our discussion of the monstrous female\u2019s contemporary on-screen descendants: from Iranian-American director Ana Lily Amirpour\u2019s vampire western, “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” (2015), <\/em>to this year\u2019s most talked about vegetarian-turned-cannibal from French director Julia Ducournau\u2019s “Raw” (2017).
\nBut why vampires in particular? Because there is nothing more powerful and threatening than a female monster who can reproduce without the other half, Bains explains. In choosing her victims, the female vampire is free to select women as much as men; furthermore, she often keeps on these mothers, daughters, wives as reformed companions\u2014\u201cseducing the daughters of the patriarchy.\u201d
\nFinally, the vampire confuses the division of human and animal: \u201ccrossing the animalistic desire of wanting to empower attack with the human desire to not.\u201d For the female vampire, biting (and transforming her victim into a mirror image of herself) is as revolutionary as an act of sexual pleasure as it is an act of self-love. \u201cFemale vampires [like ‘Girl Walks Home\u2026’] are so beyond the realm of being abused,\u201d Bains explains. \u201cShe forms her own identity through her own being.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Auto](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Auto-Italia-Nature-of-the-Hunt-005.jpg\")
Angela Goh, “Body Loss”, performed as part of “Nature of the Hunt”, Auto Italia, 2017. Image: Katarzyna Perlak<\/p>\n
While today\u2019s vampire reclaims her emotional agency as a political metaphor, the female directors of the ’70s and ’80s who willed her into existence were not so lucky. \u201cThis ability was largely denied to female directors of body horror cinema, from Italy to Japan,\u201d Bains tells me, referencing the exceptional cases of Barbara Peeters and Doris Wishman, who were only able to lay claim to this sub-genre through their filmmaker husbands.
\nBut as the monstrous female continues to subvert the male gaze, there is a positive kickback in today\u2019s film culture: a new empowerment of the female director. We can begin to ask how she wants to represent the female on screen\u2014and through all manifestations of womanhood, fur and fangs aside.<\/p>\n
“Body Loss”, performed by dancer and choreographer Angela Goh on August 11, was commissioned for “Nature of The Hunt<\/a>“, which is on display at Auto Italia until 3 September 2017<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Honing in on themes of violence, vengeance, and hysteria, “Nature of the Hunt” examines the cinematic trope of the female monster<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55665,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11856,139],"tags":[2037,2144,527,968,9169,4014,9170,9171,9172],"class_list":["post-55664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sleek-art","category-art","tag-auto-italia","tag-cinema","tag-feminism","tag-film","tag-harman-bains","tag-movies","tag-nature-of-the-hunt","tag-pinky-film","tag-sexploitation"],"acf":{"main_category":null,"legacy":"1","exclude_from_ads":null,"hero_title":null,"subtitle":null,"hero":null,"teasers":null,"facebook_image":null,"related_articles":null,"next_article":null,"sleek_card_focus":null,"content":null},"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"Auto](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Auto-Italia-Nature-of-the-Hunt-001.jpg\")
“Nature of the Hunt”, Auto Italia, 2017. Image: Corey Battle-Sanderson \/ Theo Cook<\/p>\n