[The New Woman: Annie
'Londonderry' Kopchovsky screens Sunday April 7th at 9:15 am
and Monday April 8th at 5:15 pm at the Cleveland International Film
Festival.]
Review by Bob Ignizio
As the years go by, it's somewhat
inevitable that the rich narrative of history gets distilled down to
a few key players and major events. Such streamlining is arguably
necessary in order to get a good look at the “big picture”. By
doing so, however, we risk losing some of the quikier fringe figures
and their stories that may not have had as huge an impact on the
story of mankind, but are important and intriguing nonetheless. One
such figure is the subject of Gillian K. Willman's short documentary
The New Woman: Annie 'Londonderry' Kopchovsky.
Annie Kopchovsky was a fairly ordinary
housewife and mother who, as the result of a wager, in 1895 set out
to became the first woman to ride around the world on a bicycle. She
won the bet, and along the way she became something of a feminist
icon before fading into obscurity. At least that's the story Annie
told. The truth, as Willman shows us in her film, is a little less
simple.
In addition to Annie's story, the film
also of necessity discusses the bicycling craze of the late 1890's as
well as the interest in “around the world” trips and other exotic
adventures that provided the backdrop for Annie's personal voyage,
little historical details that, like the film's primary subject, rarely
if ever make it into the history books taught in schools.
Like any good American folk hero, Annie
was larger than life and prone to embellishing her adventures. And in
true American capitalist fashion, she blazed a trail for countless
celebrities to come by selling ad space on her bicycle and clothing.
Whether any of this diminishes her actual achievements is up to the
individual viewer. However one feels about Annie, though, her story as presented here is
never less than fascinating. 3 out of 4 stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment
We approve all legitimate comments. However, comments that include links to irrelevant commercial websites and/or websites dealing with illegal or inappropriate content will be marked as spam.
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.