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Title: What's the point?
Review: "History Lessons" is primarily a montage of archival footage that has little or no discernible connection to gay women, optically reprocessed and edited to vaguely imply lesbianism. The endless repetitions of the same lab-aged and otherwise altered footage make this downright tedious at spots. Lots of spots.I first saw "History Lessons" at a film festival, accompanied by a talk by director Barbara Hammer. She is a very good speaker and obviously a creative, witty, intelligent person. I like some of her other films, but this one is too rambling and far too long for what it is.Recently, I rewatched bits of the film on DVD. Although the director's ironic, wink-and-nudge approach to some of the footage is clearer on second viewing, I just don't see the point behind this film which is clearly the result of a very time-consuming editing process.
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