After a short hiatus, let’s go on with our series ‘a film a day’. Today, let me present “Bastet”… This video is NSFW!
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“Bastet” 2:46 min, DV, 2002
In Egyptian mythology the feminine takes many forms and disguises. One of the countless god-form and mythic figures that habit the Egyptian pantheon is Bastet. She is pretty close to what the Roman culture identifies as Venus and the Greek culture once called Aphrodite, a goddess of love and fertility. Yet it is not that simple. She is the nagging, youthful and (almost) virgin version of the woman, ‘ready for pregnancy’, in contrast to for example Sechmet, portrayed as a Lion which is more descriptive of a motherly yet fierce kind of a woman that already has given birth and now protects her own. You could say that, without uttering any personal preference, that she is the immature version of the female principle whilst other female goddesses like Sechmet (with whom she was later merged) or the fully accomplished (later) Isis represent more ‘grown up’ versions of that idea. There are many more interesting female characters in Egyptian mythology, take Maat (goddess of truth and justice) just to cite one example. But the here shown film focuses on the dichotomy between Bastet and Sechmet.
The film “Bastet” asks if there is such a thing a female (or gender) specifics, how these could be utilised and stereotyped and what our modern culture does with that. I once saw a movie, I guess it was a Tarantino one: an arms catalogue was shown where naked women presented automatic rifles. By the time I thought it was a perfect metaphor and a wonderful joke until I realized that this was actually real. Such catalogues indeed do exist… The video essay also hints at the close relationship between male dominated technology and the male sex (organ). This video is NSFW!
