Jytte Rex & Kirsten Justesen, Tornerose war et vakkert barn, 1971
Jytte Rex
& Kirsten Justesen

Tornerose war et vakkert barn

The Danish painter Jytte Rex (*1942, Denmark) is also a well-known filmmaker. She studied studio art in Copenhagen between 1963 and 1969 and joined the artists group Kanonklubben, named after a Canon Super 8 camera that the group passed around. Kirsten Justesen, who joined Rex on this short film, was also a member of Kanonklubben. Their work "Damebillider" (1970) was similarly structured in tableaux, but with more concretely distinguishable types of women. Also published at the beginning of the 1970s was her book "Billed som Kampmiddel" (Image as Weapon) about feminist and women artists. In her movies, for which she has received many awards (as well as for her photo works and paintings), Rex explores dreams and reality in individual perception. These works are consequently often unidentifiable as documentation or fiction.

Tornerose war et vakkert barn (Sleeping Beauty was a Beautiful Child) is a stream of tableaux of women of different ages, talking about or demonstrating secret parts of their lives. The film stays close to the dreams and longings of the women. They reveal a kind of resignation with their anonymous role in society, which opens up for an identity that, in a peculiar and innocent way, has survived suppression. Some of the women express themselves well; others ramble, or are frank or shy. None of them live up to the Hollywood ideals or traditional left–wing views of how women should behave on screen” (Jytte Rex). The women in the film were all personal friends of the artist. According to Rex, the film was much discussed during the 1970s because its aesthetics and political statements were seen as provocative and offensive at the time.

Courtesy & Copyright Jytte Rex & Kirsten Justesen


Document media
Super 8 to 16mm film, colour, sound, 20:00 min

Issue date
1971

Relations
Kanonenklubben (KAN 1)
Kirsten Justesen (JUS 1)


Tags
aging, desire, dreamscapes, private/public,