The Face of Time - POV - Aarhus Universitet

104 p.o.v. number 13 March 2002
making Kitchen Sink is a film called Woman of the Dunes. Very
sensual textures of skin and hair and sand.
There's a shot where a King Kong poster is visible. Is that a joke?
Yes. Just the idea of a big, hairy creature. And the sexual overtones
of that. Yeah, it was a joke [laughter].
One of the things your film was praised for was that it combines art film
with horror movie. Can you say anything more about that combination?
I guess that tends to be the territory that I'm interested in generally.
I am quite interested in genre and those kinds of narrative structures
and playing with people's expectations, in terms of thriller or
horror. I am quite attracted to that. But then, it's never a pure genre.
It's almost just like a kind of framework to look at other more psy-
chological things.
You know, I was quite inspired also by The Fly, which also does
that. It's a horror film, but it's also quite a tender love story. I love
the collision of those two dimensions...
Doesn't the guy in The Fly also have hairs growing out of his back?
Yeah, he also has little bristles.
Your film has also been described as replacing "female gothic" with
"feminist fantastic." It's the word "feminist" that I'm especially interested
in. Do you see Kitchen Sink in feminist terms?
I'm not quite sure what it means any more. I think it meant some-
thing in the 70s, in the earlier stages of the women's liberation
movement, but now I'm not sure what it means. Only in the sense