Filmmaker Britta Sjogren was present at this screening of JO-JO AT THE GATE OF LIONS (1992), the culmination of the “Into the Vortex: Female Voice in Film” series at PFA. She gave an interesting talk about the different ways voice operates in this and the other films in the series; how voice is “slippery” and difficult to pin down, both in its origin and purpose; and how voice-over, diegetic, and mediated voices blur point of view, position, boundary, and subjectivity. A disembodied, omniscient voice, from a woman without a larynx, is associated with the crone’s hands on Jo-Jo’s face, above.

The female protagonist in this film—and most of the others in the series—waits: for the “right” man, the “right” time, an answer, her close-up.