I remember seeing this about twenty years ago in the basement of a public library, if you can believe it. It was part of some local film festival. I guess it must have just come out. I also remember watching some flick from the same festival that consisted of a woman's self-made porn flick hacked up, dipped in acid, burned, etc. And then she strung together all of the surviving strips and that was her film. Don't recall the name of that one; it was pretty forgettable aside from the porn and filmstrip-hacking aspect. This movie is not forgettable, thought it is really, really strange. Set in the near future, it centers around a young, black, lesbian blue collar activist who goes off to Libya, meets with some socialist sisters, comes back with her political conscience raised even higher, gets arrested on some spurious minor charge and dies mysteriously in jail. Her death sparks a women's revolution that turns the city (don't recall if they named it) upside down. There's a squad of whistle-blowing women on bicycles who hunt down rapists and scare them off their victims. There's a funky black woman DJ who narrates the action like a sports announcer as things heat up. This film is really, really bizarre. And yet, it's a whole lot of fun. This is what science fiction really should be about--not laser pistols, and ridiculously expensive special effects, but stories that pick you up, turn you upside down and give you are good, hard shake.
Review of Born in Flames
