The latest edition of the house’s film series is a love letter to Mexican and Japanese mythology.
On Wednesday, London’s glitterati descended on the Curzon Mayfair for a screening of the latest edition of Miu Miu Women’s Tales, a series of short films dedicated to the cinematic portrayal of the female experience.
Miu Miu Women’s Tales debuted in 2011 with The Powder Room, a love letter to a space where, according to Miu Miu, “gestures between women are traded in a ritual of opulent beauty.” Directed by Zoe Cassavetes, the film chronicles a glamorous femme fatale topping up her makeup amid the sense of community exclusively fostered in women’s bathrooms, until she’s “ready to face the world again.”
True to the title, Miu Miu’s Women’s Tales are directed exclusively by women. The Woman Dress by Giada Colagrande stages an ethereal depiction of a witches coven that worships at the altar of fashion, Shangri-la, the politics of an inter-racial relationship amid Depression-era U.S.A —directed by Isabel Sandoval, and House Comes with a Bird, clipped class-charged interactions in a barren yet architecturally striking mid-century California mansion, directed by (Jeremy O. Harris collaborator) Janicza Bravo.
The latest short, Eye Two Times Mouth, was the series’ 25th commission. Directed by Mexican filmmaker Lila Avilés, it follows Luz (Akemi Endo), an aspiring opera singer preparing to audition for a role in Madama Butterfly. The story maps how Mexican and Japanese mythologies overlap, the age-old proverb “the slight of a butterfly’s wing can be felt on the other side of the world,” and the power of symmetry (hence the film’s title, which refers to the span of our eyes being two times that of our mouth).
At Wednesday’s event, the screening was followed by a talk between writer Scarlett Curtis and Avilés. After introducing Avilés with due reverence, the pair discussed everything from the director’s history in the opera, her proclivity for telling women’s stories, and the role Miu Miu clothing played in the film’s mise-en-scène. Of the film’s setting in Mexico City, she explains, “sometimes we have cliches about Mexico, that it can be violent, but it can also be super tender, super beautiful.” “How she speaks is tasty Mexican,” she adds of Endo, whose accent is honey-thick.
Of being part of Miu Miu Women’s Tales, Avilés proses the series’ diversity, which was pioneered by filmmakers of vastly varying backgrounds, both culturally and professionally. “The beauty of Miu Miu Tales is the diversity. It’s not about the women. But it’s super amazing that this series is an invitation, and an invitation is always wonderful,” she gushes in broken English.
But the female gaze isn’t the films’ only common motif; each short is costumed with Miu Miu clothing; at times appearing true to the brand’s baseline—a representation of coquettish femininity, and at times so ensnared in the story it’s almost unrecognizable. “It’s like flowers; when you see something beautiful, you can’t say no,” says Avilés.
Images courtesy of Miu Miu.
