Arrows

Arrows uses a combination of live action and rostrum work to communicate the experience of anorexia and to analyse the cultural causes of the condition I am so aware of my body we are told on the soundtrack whilst images of caged wild birds are intercut with images of the rib cage of the films subject the filmmaker herself The pressures placed upon women to be thin are articulated by an account of a new technique for surgical removal of fat Once again a woman who does not conform to male expectations in terms of her bodyshape is classified as sick in need of surgery The constantly recurring motif of cages bars and railway lines reiterates the feeling of entrapment throughout the film Yet taking the camera into her own hands and revealing this process to the spectator by using a mirror the filmmaker shows herself in control of this representation of a womans body