The citations throughout Moyra Davey’s films are more than simple reference points; they enable the artist to burst open narrative and visual tropes in the search, in her words, for “the opposite of low-hanging fruit.” A commission about Derek Jarman, for instance, enabled an unsentimental assessment of illness and confessional art-making in Notes on Blue. The following year, Chantal Akerman’s death, during the production of Hemlock Forest, prompted Davey to revisit stories from her sisters’ lives and her own, touching on tragedy, addiction, and forms of grief in what would become a sobering sequel to her 2011 film Les Goddesses. Between imagery from nature and moments filming her 18-year-old son (whose entrance into adulthood is a threshold of its own), Davey reenacts scenes from Akerman. Whether restaging Babette Mangolte’s iconic shot of the New York City subway or posing as a riveting, sugary odalisque after Je Tu Il Elle, the film shows Davey at her most precise and alive with artistic might—suggesting that to have skin in the game is its own reward.
Notes on Blue. 2015. USA. Directed by Moyra Davey. With Davey, Patricia Silva. DCP. 28 min.
Hemlock Forest. 2016. USA/Canada. Directed by Moyra Davey. With Davey, Rosie, Jane Davey, Kate Davey, Louise Davey, Anne-Marie Davey, Eric Pfleging, Barney Simon-Davey, Euripides Soto, Leo Vasquez. DCP. 41 min.