Touches You

Just what I expected

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

As someone who has always been encouraged to just ignore sexual harassment I found watching this documentary empowering, it made me very happy to see a woman taking the power back and turning the objectification and invasion of space onto the men who cat-called her. I liked the anger and incredulence/bewilderment of the girl Natasha towards guys who street harass, the interview with Natasha & her mother was my favorite part of this film. I also liked the irony and obvious inappropriateness of stranger guys cat-calling a lesbian girl. Did I feel sorry for the men Maggie interviewed? If those men were embarrassed through her camera & questions, they were only embarrassed because of their own behaviour. If they were embarrassed that they were on film then that's their problem, they were behaving that way in public. I felt a bit sorry for them but I think they got what they deserved; they got a taste of having their space invaded by a stranger on the street; and they wouldn't have been embarrassed by her filming their public behaviour if they knew they had done nothing wrong.The question that is most important for men in this documentary is, "would you want strangers to behave like that towards your sister or your mother?" Most guys don't sexually harass, but enough do so that almost every women is the victim of sexual harassment on the street - usually starting from when they are quite young (10-14 years old). I had a friend who (like that 14yo girl who was interviewed) was stalked by a man on the street when she was about 12, she escaped but it really terrified her. It must be particularly hard for women/girls who are very attractive, they must get constant sexual harassment on the street. Street harassment that I have experienced has made me have my guard up all the time now when I walk past men. I am less trusting. I've prepared myself to be someone who does NOT look around if anyone calls out to me (because I don't want to be embarrassed, I don't want them to 'make me look'). Maybe I am extra-sensitive to street harassment compared to most women, but so what.Being sexually harassed by men on the street makes me feel embarrassed, insecure, disrespected & like the men view me the same way they view women in strip clubs (but I don't get paid to be eye candy). It's been odd for me to be told on my way to school or university by complete stranger men that I'm valuable because I look good. I've always felt safer at University or school because there I was valued for the work I did & who I was (not for my body).

This film brings up important issues but fails to make any interesting observations or connections. For example, there is the teenage girl who is leered at by some adults while walking in the street. It's disturbing, no doubt, but there is little commentary or significance attached to this in the film. Pedophilia, objectification of women? They're shown here, but without insight. There is also a shot of a man with his penis out at one point in the film, but it seems more for shock value than anything else. The 911 rape call is disturbing and scary, but, again, no connections are made to the objectification of women and rape.The bulk of the film is confrontations of people who leer at or otherwise harass the filmmaker. In these episodes she asks them why they do this. Much of the time the subjects walk away or insult her, which certainly makes for nice documentary footage but does not help to illuminate the subject.The filmmaker has good intentions and it probably will provoke some thought among its viewers, but as a film and societal study it does not delve deep enough into the issues of the objectification of women and violence against women.

This film should be shown to any boy on the cusp of manhood. The point of the film isn't to denigrate men, it's to remind them of the imbalance of the power relationship between the sexes. While I agree that Hadleigh-West occasionally seems overly sensitive, I think the film serves as a reminder that the line between flirtation and harassment is an invisible one, and the line is going to move considerably from person to person. The film was most effective when it confronted men who seemed willing to think or debate reasonably about their actions, but entertainment value is provided by some out and out male chauvinist pigs and Bible thumpers. There's even a nice old Jewish grandpa who gets the funniest moment in the film. My only major complaint is that sometimes the filmmaker settles on subjects who are clearly mentally handicapped, addicted to drugs or alcohol, or both. Powerful, unsettling, and thought provoking filmmaking.

I just finished watching the gritty documentary "War Zone" and feel strongly compelled to write my views. While I applaud the film's goal of educating men to the problem of a woman's perception in society, I feel that the message was drowned out in the aggressiveness and confrontational style of its filmmaker.I wholeheartedly agree that the objectification of women is a problem in society and has/can lead to a wealth of terrible situations. However, I do not agree that the answer to this problem is the practice of stripping away the right to privacy of men AND woman in an attempt to "outshout the crowd."Ms. Hadleigh-West certainly made a lot of noise with her denigrating, insulting style of filming, but did she do her important cause any good? For communication to be effective, the message must be delivered in such a way as to influence the recipient toward the speaker's intended viewpoint. The only thing accomplished by this film was to offend by labeling all men as "potential rapists" and damage the cause of women's rights by reinforcing the stereotype of feminists as offensive, confrontational bitches.To put her views in perspective: In the past 15 years, my parked car has been hit in a parking lot on 2 occasions, both times by a female driver. Am I now justified in proclaiming that all women should have their driving privileges revoked? This supposition is as ludicrous as this film's slanderous premise.Her tortured use of an actual 911 call by a rape victim only served to hype her own sense of indignation at the expense of the woman whose life was so brutally violated by the act. While she champions her claim of personal rights and privacy, she continually stripped those rights from all others involved in this film. She repeatedly thrust her camera into the faces of men, insults and degrades them, and then feels vindicated when her harassment provokes ill-tempered reactions. She actually seemed surprised that a man on the sidewalk became angry when she said she imagined he was "unemployable", "had deeply rooted problems", and asked if he were a sex offender.Her constant attacks and blind labels of all men only prove lie to her stated purpose to educate and assist. Ms. Hadleigh-West has simply used a true societal problem to shout from the rooftops, "Look at me, I'm a woman."