Slideshow
MS. 45
U.S., 1981
Directed by Abel Ferrara
With Zoë Tamerlis, Albert Sinkys, Darlene Stuto
Approx. 80 mins. DCP.
“Still working the gutter no-budget beat — a correlative to New York's no-wave punk music of the period — he brings a patina of slick visual sophistication to this rape/revenge thriller; more importantly, he allows a coherent, if extreme, feminist position to emerge. Nineteen-year-old Nastassja Kinski-lookalike Zoë Tamerlis plays Thana, a shy deaf-mute who works in New York's garment district. Sexually assaulted twice within hours, she kills her second assailant and chops him up in the bathtub (an episode that finds its way into Alan Warner's novel Morvern Callar). Gaining confidence, she arms herself and woe to the chauvinist who crosses her path. It's a provocative, disreputable movie, well worth seeing.” – Daniel Baldwin, Forbes
Reviews
“With Grand Guignol relish, Ferrara depicts a city in the throes of a Wild West lawlessness that invites vigilante action.”
– Richard Brody, The New Yorker
“Had Herzog seen it, he might have recognized Ferrara as a fellow genius, and one as weird as himself.”
– Peter Keough, Boston Globe
“The sexual politics of MS. 45 are blunt and easy to read, and the picture is riotously cathartic.”
– Stephanie Zacharek, The Village Voice