Clément, known for her work with Hélène Cixous on The Newly Born Woman , applies a feminist lens. In patriarchal iconography, women are often reduced to heads (the decapitated Medusa, the head of Salome’s prize). Clément reverses this: The severed head becomes a figure for the female intellectual in a society that has "cut off" women from full agency. To think, for a woman in 1991 (and before), was to exist as a "talking head"—heard but not fully embodied in power.
Released in 1991, the film is a surreal "portrait of an imaginary painter" based on the very real life and work of Antoine Wiertz pensees et visions d 39-une tete coupee -1991- ok.ru
: In one notable sequence, the director stages a museum tour for a group of nattily dressed dwarves, a creative choice intended to accentuate the "mad visions" and ego of the late artist. Clément, known for her work with Hélène Cixous
