At one point in the new movie Portraits of Dangerous Women, young woman Ashley (Yasmin Monet Prince) is talking to gallery owner Jon (Mark Lewis Jones) about her collection of found photographs. “I just want to put them in …”, “context?” Jon ventures. “No, frames” Ashley corrects. This seemingly simple act encapsulates the work of the film, in which the mundane is given centre stage, but in a disconcertingly unfamiliar way.
Set in a strangely timeless version of England, the film centres on the lives of three “dangerous women”, although precisely how dangerous they are is debatable.
Dangerous Woman One is Steph (Jeany Spark), a primary school teacher (albeit with an almost eerie absence of any children to teach). We’re introduced to her as she drives her father, Jon, along a series of country roads – a long, chaotically filmed sequence in which her stress manifests through increasingly reckless driving. She is clearly at breaking point, although with no obvious cause.
