FLYING REVIEW
circlesoflight.com

Jennifer Fox has created a captivating, emotive video in Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman.

This two-DVD set is a compelling investigation of Fox’s life, desires, dreams, and sometimes harsh realities.

A single Jewish independent film maker living in New York City, she takes a hard look at her own life in amazing and moving film.

In the past, Fox has earned recognition as a cinematographer whose credits include Beirut: The Last Home Movie, and An American Love Story. Her latest creation turns the lens away from others and into her own personality and thoughts lasting a full 351 minutes.

It is clear from the start that Jennifer Fox is not a super-conservative, un-liberated woman. In fact, the video begins with her explaining that during childhood she always wanted to be a boy since boys are encouraged to do things which females are discouraged from doing. That mindset carries into her adult life and is evidenced by her choice not to marry and her love of taking off to shoot films in far away lands at a moment’s notice.

Fox is not alone in Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman. She shares the thoughts and feelings of many female friends, some of whom have thoughts and lifestyles similar to Fox’s and others who are quite opposite. She explores sexuality and the hard choices all women must make regarding career, family, partners, and lifestyles.

The video covers multiple countries from Russia to the United States and provides some very beautiful scenery. It delves into the cultural differences between women living in cultures where prostitution is called “sex work” to those where premarital sex is a serious taboo to a more free and relax American culture.

Women facing life in each of these different cultures address how they feel about their lives, their sexuality, and their futures. It is a very revealing look at how women from different lands think because of the mores with which they are reared and exposed throughout life.

In Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman, Jennifer Fox looks at women attempting to get pregnant and have children alone and in their forties. At 42, she finds herself alone and pregnant and having to adjust to this new idea she had not planned for. When she learns that 50% of women over 40 who become pregnant end with miscarriages and she becomes one of the unlucky 50% herself, she then has even stranger emotions overtake her unexpectedly.

In Flying, Fox takes us with her soaring on joyful events and allows us to sink with her into the sad and tragic events in her life. She is a woman with whom any American woman can truly relate. Men watching this video could learn a great deal about the minds and hearts of females in their lives.

While this isn’t a film intended to watch with the children, it is a very important work. I found myself caught up in Fox’s story of her life so far and really was unhappy when it ended much sooner than I wished. You’ll feel the same I’m certain when you watch Fox’s Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman. Watch it with both your female and male friends because it creates lots of topics for discussion.
 
“Jennifer Fox’s “FLYING” should be REQUIRED VIEWING For every woman!”
-Candace Bushnell, Creator, SEX AND THE CITY
 
“Jennifer Fox’s work sneaks up on you… by turns brave, loving, naive and selfish, Fox embarks on a three-year odyssey, training her lens on far-flung friends to ignite an intimate, yet global, conversation on womanhood. Eavesdropping is rarely this rewarding. A- ”
-ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
 
“By turns playful, sexy, tragic and contemplative, “Flying” is an addictive soap
about sexuality and sisterhood. And if that makes the average man’s eyeballs roll,
all the more reason for his honey to buy him a ticket…”
-Jeannette Catsoulis, NEW YORK TIMES (Review)
 
“Achieves something artistically sublime and yet emotionally generous. Flying may be about the unforeseen boundaries of choice, but it most movingly depicts the healing power of open exchanges. There’s even something spatially revolutionary in Fox’s country-hopping gabfest, in that for once we get a vision of our more-navigable-than-ever Earth through the viewpoints of its struggling, make-do women rather than its predictably conquering men.”
-LA WEEKLY
 
“MIRACULOUS! The nerve it takes to expose herself-and her friends, which is another issue-is matched by Fox’s ability to twist the confessional doc into a globetrotting highbrow soap opera. Brutally frank about the vagaries of her erotic romantic relationships… Fox ends up asking, straightforwardly, why woman can’t live the way so many men traditionally have. What she asks, obliquely, is why monogamy is so hard. What she celebrates, in a subtler way still, is self-determination.”
-John Anderson, VARIETY
 
“Illuminates the jagged edges of human desire… An eclectic mix of film languages, including vérité, self-shooting, diaries, narration and what Ms. Fox calls ‘passing the camera,’ in which her subjects shoot one another as well as her. A personal memoir, feminist manifesto and examination of Global Woman! Ms. Fox… seems intent on reflecting something altogether outside movies. Or even nonfiction. Balzac, perhaps. Or George Eliot.”
-John Anderson, NEW YORK TIMES (Feature Story)
 
“Fox travels the globe to talk sex, marriage, babies, divorce, work, identity, oppression, socialization and abuse with her fascinating, far-flung friends. And their combined stories add up to something remarkable: a kaleidoscopic meditation on gender-as-destiny”
-LOS ANGELES TIMES
 
“The truth about women’s sex lives is usually more entertaining than any fiction
Hollywood could dream up. That’s why hanging out and talking with friends
often makes for a better night than going to the movies.
In Flying, however, filmmaker Jennifer Fox manages to combine the two…
Exactly the kind of film that should be shown to teenage girls in health class.”
-BUST MAGAZINE
 
“Captures the rhythm and flow of female conversation, sometimes sad, often bawdy.
FLYING is…shot through with some wonderful stories.”
-Julia Wallace, VILLAGE VOICE
 
“Disarmingly Intimate!”
-THE NEW YORKER
 
“Each chapter offers a captivating look at what it means to be a ‘free’ woman, liberated from the shackles that Ms. Fox says restricted her mother and so many other baby boomers.
Much of the power of FLYING is found when Ms. Fox turns the camera away from herself…
These anecdotes and experiences from women around the world lend
a greater significance to Ms. Fox’s ‘ordinary’ American life.
They are compelling moments that require thought and reflection.”
-James Snyder, NEW YORK SUN
 
“Best miniseries I’ve seen this year…There are times when Fox’s nervy endeavor
to combine art and life obliges one to give way to the other,
but her efforts and reflections throughout are riveting.”
-CHICAGO READER
 
” ☆ ☆ ☆ (3 Stars!)
This verite essay explores female sexuality as a key part of female freedom.
Fox scrupulously chronicles her own day-to-day life.
It’s a credit to her artistry that this doc never veers into icky narcissism.”
-CHICAGO SUN TIMES
 
“Fox is one of the boldest, brightest, fascinating… ever to move across
this much space… Nervy, emotional impact is in each and every passage…
There’s a wealth of stuff to talk about after this insistent provocation.”
-NEW CITY CHICAGO
 
“Fox is breaking new ground in terms of personal documentary. I wouldn’t be surprised if FLYING finds a phenomenal following among women, and womenfriendly men all over the world. Like reading an enormous multi-character novel by Thackeray or Tolstoy or getting swept up in a much slower and more intelligent version of ‘Sex and the City.’”
-Andrew O’Hehir, SALON.COM
 
“Six hours is a long time to spend with a total stranger, but by the end of filmmaker Jennifer Fox’s remarkably honest and unexpectedly engrossing self-portrait, you may feel you know her better than you know many of your close friends. You may even miss Fox a little once the film ends, but she leaves you with plenty to think about. In the end this very personal journey becomes a valuable universal document from which we can all learn about the way women live today.”
-Ken Fox, TV GUIDE.COM
 
“FLYING is a sometimes uncomfortably intimate but compulsively watchable film. Fox smartly manages to parallel her own abuse at the hands of both men and women, without loosing sight of the fact that she’s a privileged, white, liberal New Yorker… Fox’s subjects seem unusually at ease in revealing some of their most intimate secrets. That’s a tribute to Fox’s own openness… It’s also because Fox shot the film by passing her small video camera from person to person during the scenes. Able to turn the camera back on the interviewer whenever they wished, Fox subjects quickly lost their discomfort of being in the spotlight.”
-Simon Houpt, TORONTO GLOBE & MAIL
 
“Triumphant, fearless, passionate and powerful, FLYING is an uninhibited epic of modern day women living, loving and struggling on their own terms and with the men in (and out of) their lives…”Flying” is so profound at times that it is moving and overwhelming, and there is an organic beauty about it that is undeniable. This film is essential viewing.”
-Omar Moore, THE POPCORN REEL
 
“Fox is on a journey to uncover her own personal definition of freedom, a definition that evolves throughout the film. Candid, raw and unflinching, Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman ultimately reveals that real love sets you free, even as it binds you to others.”
-Jenny Lauck, BLOGHER.ORG
 
“Using her own life and loves as the film’s central conceit, Fox sought not to create a film about herself, but to weave a connection with other women and their stories. The wingspan of this audacious and exhilarating six-part, six-hour series stretches from Phnom Penh to Islamabad, from Lapland to Capetown, and effectively employs flying metaphors throughout… Intimacy and presence permeate Fox’s work and life… It’s easy to see why women in the film, whom she’s just met (no matter how different their cultural and ethnic heritage may be from hers), feel so relaxed in her company.Her warmth, caring and genuine concern energetically affect everyone with her radius.”
-Cathleen Roundtree, IDA DOCUMENTARY
 
“There is definitely an addictive soap opera aspect to the series but it is always
intelligent and thought-provoking and so doesn’t leave you with the sick,
empty calorie feeling of genuinely soapy fare.”
-Ingrid Koop, SHOOTINGPEOPLE.ORG
 
“When I watched Jennifer Fox’s Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman, I was blown away. I don’t say that often here, so sit up and take note. I’ve never seen a film that connected with me, as a woman, like this movie. FLYING begins as Fox’s personal story as she attempts to navigate her complicated love life, but her issues bring up larger questions of what it means to be a “free” woman in modern times. You may think that what you hope for is unique or the challenges you face exceptional, but Fox probably met one or more women who would be able to share your joy and pain. What struck me after watching all 6 hours in one sitting (I couldn’t stop!), was how little of these similarities show up in our images, whether it is movies, magazines, websites.”
-Agnes Varnum, DOC IT OUT
 
“The series is interesting, I think, because it asks every question that modern feminism should be asking itself, if it is to have any meaningful role in modern political discourse. Can women have sex on equal terms to men, and without guilt? Do we have control over our own reproductive systems, or are we still fighting for it? Is parity in terms of breeding and child-rearing ever a realistic goal, or do women just “see things differently”? Have the barriers of misogyny been overturned only for privileged women? As western women, should we even be discussing our relatively minor gender issues, or should we be focused on the much more devastating injustices women suffer elsewhere?”
-Zoe Williams, THE GUARDIAN
 
“A six-hour documentary about one New York woman’s sex life and associated neuroses? Is it *Seinfeld* on estrogen? Well, yeah, maybe, if *Seinfeld* had dared to be about something. Shockingly personal, in that cosy way of a secret female conversation, Fox discusses her affair with a married man; her deep desire not to turn into the angry, bitter, unfulfilled women who raised her; her conflicted feelings about potential motherhood; the constant pressure from all sides to mold oneself into one idea of womanhood or another; and other tender and contentious issues that modern women are coping with on a daily basis. But Fox’s global network of friends expand the conversation further, as women in such farflung places as Pakistan and Cambodia reveal their most private thoughts on sex and love in cultures where they have far less autonomy than Fox and her audience do. Astonishingly, not once in the course of the six hours does the film feel self-indulgent or blinkered: Fox’s soul-baring honesty and willingness to concede that she is still figuring out this life thing turns what could have — probably should have - been nothing but egotistical and self-centered into something profound and universal… at least for half the human race. Don’t miss it.”
Green light (on the FlickFilosopher.com red/yellow/green scale)
-MaryAnn Johanson, FlickFilosopher.com
 
“Talk about a Rorschach test. Just minutes into Jennifer Fox’s first-person, six-hour documentary Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman, you’ll either want to hug her, strangle her, fuck her, or be her. One interpretation of the opus’ title is an homage to Erica Jong’s scandalous 1973 novel Fear of Flying, which boasted a heroine as sex-mad as any male horndog. So is Fox a sexually liberated, feminist romantic with the remarkable courage to reveal herself on film? Or a spoiled, narcissistic twit who can’t get enough screen time? However you vote, you’ll be thankful she has highachieving female friends around the globe whose views of women’s roles are never less than fascinating. Alas, none of them offers Fox the most obvious counsel: Fire her therapist, who’s been taking her money for 20 years.”
-Michael Fox, SAN FRANCISCO WEEKLY
 
“We’re riveted… as we eavesdrop on these uninhibited conversations that Fox facilitates using a technique she calls ‘passing the camera’. In short, she was Carrie, Miranda, and Samantha rolled into one - and content as a hat-tossing Mary Tyler Moore. No wonder Sex and the City creator Candace Bushnell loved this film.”
-AUSTIN CHRONICLE
 
“Fox, who stars in as well as directs the film, is a talented, inquisitive and vivid storyteller.
I’d mark how effective FLYING is by the fact that I’m under no obligation to watch
the rest of the series, but I’m eager to do so.”
-MERCURY NEWS