At the beginning of February, the short film Woman Driver: the Musical was released on the Internet. Woman Driver was created as part of the 72-Hour National Film Challenge in Marfa, Texas where it won Best Actress, Best in Genre, and Best Soundtrack. For the general population, this event would have been a drop in the deep bucket of daily Internet news. But for Laura Marling fans, it marked the release of pieces of three new songs that will debut on March 23 on her newest album Short Movie.
This film is a delight to watch because it is not what you expect. It seems inevitable that the scruffy, bandana-ed man driving a miniature school bus and the ethereal, guitar-playing woman hitchhiker he picks up are going to fall in love. Soft, crooning lyrics like, “I think you were wrong, you said I can’t love,” “Now I can’t walk alone” and “Oh how I don’t want to leave you, so much I can’t hardly bear” leads the viewer into an almost comfortable certainty. But when the male lead tries to kiss Marling while she intently strums her guitar, she instinctively backs away, mumbling a surprised “woah”. She uncomfortably laughs and even seems to think the situation genuinely funny, at least until she sees that the guy is actually personally offended. The guy gives fed up sigh and then somewhat maliciously turns to her as he leaves muttering, “That was your last chance.” Marling, not taking any of his sh*t, drives away in his bus, smiling to herself, and leaving him stranded by the side of the road.
Having watched this video dozens of times, I’d like to make an argument for why I think it makes a playful, but still serious, feminist statement. Throughout the film, Marling subtly resists the male lead’s ingrained, unconscious sense of dominance. When she good-naturedly asks what’s going on with the guy’s car after they stop for maintenance, he jokingly asks if she knows what a fan belt is, playing into the stereotype that women don’t know anything about mechanics. She admits that she doesn’t, but that she “knows how to tune a guitar.” This is a playful jab because the guitar she’s tuning actually belongs to him, who admitted just before that he’d “never heard it in tune.” Marling’s comment is refreshing because it points out that people have different skills because they have different experiences, and having such skills doesn’t make one person better than the other.
Later on, the guy pushes Marling for information about why she’s going “up north” and tries to convince her to stay in Albuquerque with him. She declines to give away any personal information except that she has “a connection” there. Though Marling also tries to convince him to go up North, it is more so that she will have the means to make it there rather than for the need of his company. He is the one who brings up the idea a second time, and suggests a picture of the two of them together turning the bus into a food truck (which in and of itself is a rather absurd idea). She responds, “I can’t convince you to take me all the way up north,” not bringing up and association between them besides as traveling companions.
The kiss following this exchange is obviously the most problematic scene in this film. Watching it for the second and third time with my female friends, many of them admitted to having red flags pop when the guy slings, “That was your last chance.” With his muttered comment, the male lead exhibits a sense of entitlement in this film. He appears to assume that he and this woman are on the same page romantically, which, granted, is a reasonable assumption, given we as viewers were lead to believe the same thing. But, as I explained above, the two are headed in different direction, with Marling much more focused on getting to her destination than their fledgling relationship. Furthermore, his extreme negative reaction to her nonverbal refusal makes it appear as though he thinks she owes something to him. It is as if he doesn’t understand that a woman can just be hitchhiking to go somewhere, not find a man to spend the night with, that she can have any goals or desires that do not have to do with the opposite sex, that she does not exist for him. In addition, saying “That was your last chance” gives the woman the idea that the man is the only one who can initiate a romantic interaction. That, I think, is why the ending of Marling stealing the bus is so rewarding: it gives her power in an ordinarily powerless situation.
Laura Marling, as seen in this movie, as well as other projects, clearly has something to say about womanhood that is worth listening to and picking apart. Her voice is powerful, confident but not overbearing, and important:
“The long tears of women are silent so they don’t wake those who sleep.”
“I won’t be a victim of romance. I won’t be a victim of circumstance.” (From Once I Was an Eagle)
“If I don’t think about it, it’s okay. If I don’t think about it, it don’t go away.”
Check out Woman Driver below: