Born In Flames

Reviewer: Erin Donovan
Rating (out of 5): ***½

At last - a DVD release of the movie young, feminist film-makers spent their formative years trading bootleg VHS copies of: Born in Flames. Made in 1983 and touted as "feminist science fiction, Lizzie Borden's Born in Flames is set in the grimy streets of a pre-Giulliani NYC but ten years after a peaceful social revolution that had ostensibly made all Americans equal. However, women are still facing a disproportionate level of violence that the police and local government don't acknowledge ("after all, ladies, you already had your revolution!")

The women divide into two camps: The first, a group of academics who bemoan the lack of dialogue and inclusiveness in the movement; the other,consisting mostly of black lesbians, start an army to patrol the streets on bicycles (armed with whistles). After beating up two rapists, they're labeled a terrorist group and become the scapegoat for group of men who claim the war of liberation has made it impossible for them to find jobs. When the leader of this group is taken into custody and dies mysteriously, the two groups decide to cede their differences.

Borden manages to examine the chasms between the intellectual and emotional rewards of organizing for social change that feels at once remarkably refresh (if not freshly aggravating) as well as a glimpse
into the personal struggles of second wavers. Even the ways the women use hand-cranked presses and pirate radio stations to communicate elicits a certain nostalgia for Kinkos scams and the early days of the internet that bound the riot grrrl movement together.

Unfortunately, the film might remain an underground secret for a few decades longer. The last scene shows the female army converging to destroy a symbol of greed and human indifference... in the form of blowing up the World Trade Center. Ouch. In 1997 Borden defended the ending of the film by saying: "I asked many, many women if they would ever use violence, and the answer was always no. How convenient for the government. I'm posing the question: What if we did?" Perhaps future filmmaker
Kathryn Bigelow, who had a small role here as a newspaper journalist, can make the post-September 11th sequel to Born in Flames.

DVD includes a trailer gallery and an interview with Lizzie Borden in pdf format.

See also: Times Square, Heathers, The Spook Who Sat By the Door, Putney Swope, Manny & Lo.