A Weird West Side Story? It’s Please Baby Please, Amanda Kramer’s camp film on Mubi

We can’t say it enough, Mubi is a goldmine for anyone who wants to think outside the Netflix box and discover independent cinema nuggets, field it’s strange.

This Friday, March 31, we discovered a small UFO directed by American feminist director Amanda Kramer. In Please baby please revisit musicals 60’s sauce queer. Also, too inventive Thatfun and profound, the film is our favorite of the week. What could be more conducive to questioning the gender norms that weigh on everyone’s sexual identity and orientation than the gang environment, where the race for manhood has no limits?

On the occasion of the release of the film, the director told us about it her love of danceof his desire to dust off the musicals and the importance in the history of feminism of the French actress John Seberg.

The story and trailer of Please Baby Please

Worn by Harry Melling, Andrea Riseborough, Karl Glusmann AND Demi Moorethe film tells the story of Suze and Arthur, a couple who witness a murder committed by a gang of black jackets.

Fallen under the influence of these offenders, they will question themselves a long-repressed sexuality.

Arthur is particularly upset by their leader, an androgynous Marlon Brando lookalike.

Interview with director, Amanda Kramer

To miss. How did you get the idea and the desire to create Please Baby Please?

Amanda Kramer. I believe that ideas come at the most improbable moments, when you walk down the street, when you read, when you talk to someone, when you watch movies… Often that’s where my inspiration comes from. But to be more specific, I wrote this film at a time when I was watching many early 20th century films, movies where men were men and women were women. These films were so codifiedthere was only one way to be sexy, strong, handsome, or handsome, depending on your gender. These very standardized imaginaries led me to imagine a couple who were going through a moment in their lives in which they wondered about the form their relationship could take..

In your opinion, is cinema decisive in the construction but also in the upheaval of these so binary gender norms?

YES ! I think this approach to cinema as a creator and carrier of gender stereotypes is really interesting. especially in the case of French cinema. When you think of an actress like John Seberg, who had boyish hair at a time when it wasn’t all that popular to have very short hair. He seems cheesy today but back then he was considered so masculine. Jean Seberg has upended the standards of what is considered sexy. She blazed a different trail than the busty blonde model with red lipstick, long legs, and high heels. For me, these little evolutions keep happening, and it’s the same for men: male sexuality is also changing.

As a feminist, in your opinion, what are the links between queerness and feminism?

I think when you’re a feminist, you have to think about masculinity. We have to talk about women, of course, about women’s lives and history. But you also need think about what makes menwhat men do, how they treat each other why how they treat each other is ultimately the story of the violence we experience. We women are somewhat at the bottom of this pyramid of violence which constitutes male socialization.

And it’s the same with queerness. Feminists and the queer community are deeply connected why they fight for the same things in the endnamely equality, respect and dignity. We have to be allies, rather than thinking that everyone is part of a niche, that they cannot communicate, exchange, move forward together. We have the same concerns, we want to be taken seriously. We want to be seen, not hidden.

Despite the depth of the topics covered by the film, the violence of certain situations, there are many very funny situations, characters or characters. Do you think humor is also a way to break all these rules?

I think for that people enter your universe, you have to be a little ironic. If you scold someone in your film, if you give someone orders, if you have a harsh tone, people close off; feminists deal with it all the time. When people feel amused and off guard, they can hear ideas better, identify with characters.

Indeed, many people have seen the film and he told me that they recognized themselves in a character who was not of their type. And it’s very gratifying because that’s what it means thanks to the humor and these characters, everyone can somehow understand the ideas philosophers and feminists conveyed by the film.

Dance takes center stage in your staging, it externalises what the characters sometimes find difficult to express.

I think that one of the greatest gifts cinema gives us is this his images are eternal. Actors live inside the screen forever and we can see their bodies, expressions and movements. I watch a lot of movies with Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly, for example. Dance films from the 40s, 50s and 60s. For me these films are magical. They almost seem to float. I would like to recreate this in all my works. Gorgeous bodies of all shapes, sizes and ages.

Dance heals, makes us smile, warms us up and calms us down. And I think so it is a lost art somehow. culturally, we don’t really dance anymore. This is definitely the case in other parts of the world, but certainly not in America. It is therefore wonderful to reintroduce dance and song into the movies, but without making it into the rigidity of the musicalwhich discourages many people. It must be said that it is neither saccharine nor saccharine, it is like the rhythm of life !