Played at the July 2017 Experimental Short Film Festival

65.5 WOMEN, 6min, Norway, Experimental
Directed by Liv Mari Mortensen

To understand a recent failure, a young man writes a statistic of all the women he ever slept with. As he tries to simplify all of his affairs into simple characteristics the memories start to take over, leaving him to face the only one he truly wanted.

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Dramatic, collaborative and unbarred, 65.5 WOMEN is the story of one man recounting his sexual exploits to the woman he might bed next. But his descriptions of his conquests are not told from his voice- but from the women he speaks of. Subtle and often humorous, 65.5 WOMEN has an unmistakable charm in it, and an interesting dissection of genre and sexual politics.

Our narrator is never seen, in fact, other than his opening lines and closing lines he is rarely even heard. The focus, instead, is on the statistically way he recounts his sexual partners- the actual lines said by those very women while they break the fourth wall in a nonchalant and unassuming way. It is open for dense discussion as to who has the power in this piece- our male hero, the woman the hero is speaking to, or the women he is recounting.

Perhaps the depth in this piece comes from its subversion of gender power. The man, who is recounting his conquests with an almost unemotional air, has his very voice removed. The piece follows the women, and the descriptive factors that define them (“This one had a drug problem…this one had red hair.”) are said instead by the women who own the descriptors. The woman take agency, by using their own voices, and owning their descriptions.

A piece worthy of discussion on an academic level, but no less enjoyable to anyone simply looking for an introspective short film, 65.5 WOMEN is a deep and intellectual piece that packs an emotional punch.

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