Cat Swallows Parakeet and Speaks!, Ileana Pietrobruno's triumph of mid-vaginal modernism masterfully confronts the surreal nature of societal attitudes towards the female body. Beautifully shot at Riverview Hospital (formerly an insane asylum), the film follows the journey of Scheherazade, a young model attempting to insulate herself from paternalistic and sinister medicalization throught the re-telling of tabloid tales. Replete with lesbians, anorexics, necrophillic undertones and a deluge of menstrual blood, Pietrobruno's febrile fable contains enough raw passion to ignite the sensiblities of even the most faded feminists.
