Wanda (1970)

(On Cable TV, September 2020) While, on paper, Wanda looks like the kind of couple-on-the-run movies that were so popular in 1970s New Hollywood, the film is nothing like that. Almost entirely conceived (written, directed, produced) and starring Barbara Loden, it’s a character study of an aimless young woman who latches on to a bank robber as she leaves the rest of her miserable life behind. Road movie, aimless drama and gritty portrait of an unglamorous low-rent America, Wanda is all that and more, or maybe less, considering how threadbare, stripped-down, slow-paced and meandering it is. You can recognize the ambition to create something new and personal here—this is absolutely feminist filmmaking despite presenting a character so weak and flawed as to be loathsome. Representation can take the form of a character study as much as fist-pumping inspiration. Wanda may not be for everyone, but its historical importance seems secure (as, I’m told, the first film written, directed and played by the same woman)—and it’s not as if we’re forcing people to see it.