Or did she already know that? This film is brutally honest, frank and unsentimental for 2010, let alone 1970, and as the burgeoning women’s liberation movement was progressing into the Me Decade, one has to feel that Loden is several steps ahead of all those feminist groundbreakers by centering her tale on a woman who is neither ambitious, goal-driven, creative, or even remotely maternal in any way. Loden’s Wanda character occupies all time and all space without a single apology for her attire, demeanor, or cynical disregard for society’s niceties and structured manners. She just is.
In a way, the film resembles an anti-quest as Wanda hooks up with a small-time crook, played with mean-spirited anti-sophistication by the brilliantly direct and soulless Michael Higgins. The two become a couple, but it is all animal, all nature, and nothing remotely resembling anything civilized. Their relationship is loveless and tortured from the beginning. Higgins’ sinister Mr. Dennis character is also moving through life, working from one theft to the other without any plan, any motive, or any sense of goals. In fact, Mr. Dennis is a raging alcoholic with frequent headaches, and a penchant for cheap cigars while a serious Wanda looks on in childlike bemused detachment. He just is.
Wanda is happy just to have another soul, lost or otherwise, to cling to in her sad existence. On the surface, she, along with Mr. Dennis, appear heartless, quite pathetic, and weak examples of our species. However, in the end, Loden’s stone cold independent masterpiece accurately portrays the dark side of our hidden nature, our latent inability to live within society’s hypocritical rules. To a degree, the film also exposes the recurring root of evil to be not only money, but the inability for many to forge a means in which to acquire it. The Man isn’t the main problem here; neither is The Boss controlling all the labor and production. Wanda just doesn’t give a shit about any of that, and her defiant and ethereal lack of interest in the world that surrounds her is quite a haunting thing to behold. She wants to move forward, but doesn’t have the will or desire to plant any semblance of roots which will erase the day-to-day existence of her wayward wandering.
We float along, the wind will carry us, often from one misfortune to the next, but, somehow, like Wanda, one envisions a time when our space will be tranquil and free. Until then, the road appears endless—vague things rise and fall on a mysterious path…
- Wanda: Amazon / NetFlix
- Previously on Hidden Flick: The Window
