July 6, 2007 -- HOW would you like to be stuck in a dark room for hour upon hour listening to a neurotic middle-aged woman complain about her love life? This, in effect, is what happens to those unfortunate enough to find themselves watching the six-hour documentary Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman. The culprit is filmmaker Jennifer Fox, who for some reason thinks the world revolves around her.
Never without her video camera, she turns it on herself and just about everybody with whom she comes in contact. She records everything - even her gynecological examinations. About the only thing we re spared is Fox on the toilet (or did I miss that?
). I never wanted to be a girl, she confesses. I wanted to be like my father.
I wanted to be free. And so she is. At age 42, she juggles relationships with two men: a married cheat in South Africa and a single Swiss guy.
She calls the former her lover and the latter her boyfriend, never bothering to explain the difference between the two categories. Woody Allen looks well-adjusted compared to Fox, who has been seeing a shrink for 20 years with little apparent effect. Fox travels the world visiting other women, who have little choice but to speak into the camera - although the subject always gets around to the filmmaker and her tangled life.
What makes Fox thinks that anybody cares enough about her that they would waste six hours on this mind-numbing exercise in narcissism? Me, me and me. Running time: 350 minutes, shown in two parts.
At Film Forum, Houston Street between Sixth Avenue and Varick Street.
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