toninofontana I cannot help but feel filthy watching this film. Jennifer Fox is an altogether repulsive character. There are many films made centering on vile characters, but I never bought into her absurd belief system. She is the absolute nadir of humanity. Her life is pathetic and tragic. She spreads her ridiculous example to other pathetic wretches who actually believe that they represent enlightened, "modern women". The notion that she actually supports herself by teaching is abhorrent to me. Abortion was never meant to be used as birth control. Her body now spontaneously aborts each fetus...how ironic is this? Through this entire debacle, her answer to her dilemma is to advise her girlfriends to freeze their eggs. Moral choices have no place in her depraved world. People laud her for her honesty, but most people would be ashamed to divulge such reckless behavior. Feminist filth.

liza Despite its awful title, this film had potential. I wanted to be able to like this doc and herald it as an important feminist work for opening the discussion between women of different cultures on what love and marriage means to them, but I'm so put off by Fox's seemingly willful ignorance about her own life that it negates the film's positives.Fox is so self-obsessed and unwilling to admit her own role in the relationships she chooses and the realities of how most other relationships work that I find it nearly unbearable to watch. I think there's a way to eschew traditional relationship roles without being so selfish or purposefully oblivious that you can't sympathize with those who adhere more to traditional roles.I mean, any single adult who enters into an ongoing sexual relationship with a married person and doesn't for a second think "what happens if we get discovered?" nor acknowledges in any way prior to being discovered that said discovery might be the catalyst in the demise of the adulterous relationship is a tad delusional.And the whole "I don't get married because I've seen men do bad things and I don't want to get emotionally hurt" bent just seems so naive. What does marriage have to do with the capacity to be hurt emotionally? Obviously Fox was hurt by the fact that she couldn't talk to her lover after his wife discovered their sexual relationship. The only way to not open yourself up to being emotionally hurt by relationships is to not BE in any relationships, married or otherwise. Is that not common sense to liberal New York narcissists? Guess not.Fox's annoying hubris is a shame, because if she could have just shut up about her own stupid life for a second, she might've had a good idea for a documentary—and it would have been a hell of a lot shorter than a tedious six hours. Instead we're presented with someone who proclaims her alleged freedom while showing us how miserable her decision to be "free" makes her. Um, hooray?

avis2783 Jennifer Fox did what most women would cringe to do...she discussed (and sometimes showed) all the intimate details of her sex life and she did it very openly. Sometimes her company consisted of men and women who were not hip to her ways and she could have faced severe consequences. Flying is about every woman and no woman. Some of these women have been free to explore their sexuality while some don't even know what an orgasm is (even after marriage). Fox did a brave thing by addressing not only the sexuality issues women have globally, but the issues we have with our mothers, our fathers, our siblings, nieces, nephews, body image, pregnancy,divorce, and several other factors. To keep it this real, it can't always be pretty so from Le Dawn's divorce woes, to Mindy the soccer mom, you can't help but identify with at least someone in the film. If you have an open mind, better yet an open heart this will be a good film for you. Feminist or not.

Chris_Docker What does it mean to be free? Can you make a list of rights? Is freedom doing what you want without harming others? Or is it a feeling . . . ? Can you get it back? Filmmaker Jennifer Fox starts her six hour epic documentary with vague ideas and a determination to get on track. Her life is a mix of 'liberated' and 'fucked up'. She's successful in her job. She has a nice boyfriend. She's also doing long-term deep 'n' meaningful with a married guy. And yes, she's totally open with everyone about everything.But Jennifer, forty-something and Jewish, has the advantage of living in a fairly 'free' society. When she starts exploring women's situations in other countries, her search for freedom takes on very different perspectives. Even as she goes through crises of miscarriage and conscience in her own life, her problems are dwarfed by women whose daily lives include rape, prostitution, female circumcision, sexual abuse and near slavery."Men talk about what they think; women talk about what they feel. That's the difference!" Confessions of a Free Woman is a film written in the language of feelings. A different language. The language of women. Fox gets involved with women who are in desperate circumstances. With women who are, or become, her friends. She treats all as equals. The shared emotions are a bridge of understanding for us as we watch spellbound.The film's title perhaps evokes Erica Jong's famous novel, Fear of Flying. Both works address the complexity of relationships. Desire. Love. Dependence. And 'freedom.' But Fox is skin-flayingly autobiographical. When stuff hits the fan, it's real. And we experience it with her. Fox and Jong have used a common symbol of flying to evoke the sense of freedom. For Fox, it hearkens back to childhood. She would practice take-offs and landings with her father - who had a small two-seater plane. She idealises father as 'free'. As a man, he could do "anything he wanted." Jennifer follows in dad's footsteps in many ways, but then she hits a time in life where different perspectives are kicking in - with a harshness. Her best friend has a brain tumour. She herself doesn't know if she wants a child. And are her 'freedom-based' relationships really satisfying? 'Flying' evolves in a very female-orientated way. She has always been acutely aware of her gender in terms of freedom. Being/not being controlled by men. One of her main techniques is to 'pass the camera' during group conversations. She addresses problems women face in an archetypically female way – by talking about them, and sharing emotion. While it succeeds in this to an extent that is almost groundbreaking, the film will divide audiences equally.Men may need to make a bigger jump to understand women in the way women do. Arguably, though, it is worth the effort. Women still don't have parity even in the West. In some countries, they are little better off than livestock. In purely scientific terms, this is a massive loss to humanity. A loss of potential. Even before we get on to human rights: by failing to appreciate the value of others, we devalue ourselves, whatever the gender. It just so happens that women have often got a very short straw. So there is a good case to suspend traditional judgement and let the film speak in its own language before finalising your opinion.And here's why you may feel it is an effort. Fox is an accomplished filmmaker, but her marathon voice-over has the tone of someone talking to a child or young student. (Is it a mistake commonly made by women who have been patronised? To then patronise? – a vicious cycle, but one that was exploded by feminist philosopher Radcliffe Richards in the 90's). Secondly, her narcissistic self-analysis can be like Woody Allen without the comedy, Sex in the City without the glamour, or Ally McBeal without a decent script. It takes her six hours of film (and several years of her life) to see what friends and family can see in five minutes (She falls in love with the wrong people – duh! – I've done that too, but did you really want to know?). Thirdly, she argues from the particular to the general (the erroneous logic of, 'because this example is true, it must be true for all cases'). Such flawed, quasi-philosophical ruminations would be laughable were they not accompanied by so much anguish. Fox's grand exploration lacks any visible academic basis and it is tempting to believe she is a bit up herself. The most interesting part of the film, the lives of other women, is dealt with far too superficially. It is easy to see her as a wide-eyed American, flying in for a three-hour tour of the horrific Asian brothel, then telling us her amazing facts as if she was the first person to discover them.But for all its many flaws, Flying – Confessions of a Free Woman, is a considered triumph of film-making. It stays with you the way trivial events shared with close friends stay with you. So even the flaws work. Jennifer Fox puts herself through ordeals on camera. She exposes her private life in a way few people could bear. Remarkably, she can be experiencing dire personal struggles yet still the professional in her captures it on film. Then we have (after equally impressive editing by Nils Pagh Andersen) a lengthy work that is asking you to spend the best part of a day to watch it. That is brave.And this reviewer is grateful that he was convinced to do it.