Michelle Citron’s Daughter Rite (1980) was an incredibly cryptic view into the internal and sometimes unspoken relationship between mother and daughter. It’s hard to begin talking about the narrative of the film just because in my opinion it accomplished entering an internal, thoughtful space. The staged discussions between the “sisters” was probably the most convincing to create this space. They would interject into the sequence and essentially provided an indirect example of the daughters reaction and absorption of their mothers lessons and actions. The scene where they are discussing how to make the fruit salad is probably my favorite depiction of the lessons unconsciously passed down, mother to daughter. Prior to the interjection the blonde sister (if I remember correctly) was talking about the harsh relationship with her mother and how her mother basically did not support her and arguably judged her because of this. So when the two sisters begin discussing whip cream or yogurt, the facial expressions as well as how they went about discussing only leaves one to assume the similarities to their mother as well as their own developed reactions counter to their mothers actions.
“Well yogurt is healthy is better for you.” “Well whip cream just tastes better, id rather use that.” “* a grimace, or rather unimpressed facial expression serves as a response*” ” We are gonna use yogurt.”
^ this was a rough paraphrasing of a highlight of the scene, this links directly back to the statement one of the women makes. It was something to the effect of I love my mother but I will never be like her ?? ( I honestly have to re-watch it to get my quotes direct)
These interjecting scenes act as models for the discussions started in the narration essentially.
A little bit unrelated but for me that was the scene that ruined the film for me. Not because of anything that was said or the subject matter, in fact I found the dialogue to be realistic and compelling. However the way the scene was shot had a certain sense of artifice about it. I caught myself wondering why hasn’t the camera operator moved the camera at all in the past ten minuets and why are they still shooting this?
Now in a documentary or a film in general for that matter you shouldn’t be able to remove yourself from the narrative enough to be able to notice camera movements like that unless the director calls attention to it (literally any Tarentino movie has at least one instance of a weird camera action) .
But in a film like this which is a compilation of various women’s stories the sense of emergence in the constructed narrative is important. And the salad scene pulled me away from that.