I was recently hired to operate a camera on an ultra low budget feature. As is often the case I was the only woman crew member but additionally, because the theme of the film was a bachelor party, I was very often the only woman in the room. Now if you haven’t noticed from reading my reviews, I am opinionated. And I went to law school, so I like a good well-reasoned argument. So I got into a little tete a tete with one of the “bachelors” who kept insisting that he knew what women liked and thought, despite the fact that I was sitting right there saying no.

So when I sat down to watch Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman I thought about how funny it would be to send the whole 6 hour DVD to this particular gentleman. Be-cause this is about the realest portrayal of women’s lives I’ve seen in a long time, since really I can’t remember when. Jennifer Fox is an activist filmmaker from a nice middle class family, living a globe-trotting life, complete with a loft in NYC and 2 boyfriends. When we meet her she’s just hit that early 40s place where one starts reflecting and examining one’s life. Friends are getting sick, parents are old and she finds herself still in her ‘free’ place - not tied down by anyone or anything. But of course the question then becomes, is it really freedom?

This 6 hour epic of Fox’s journey of exploration no mere self-indulgent exercise. Nor is it some bleeding heart liberal apologia. It is also an examination of many, many other women’s differing experiences, in their own voices, with their own advice to Fox on her struggles. Thus this true narrative because where we witness an actual transforma-tion of self right before our eyes happens in the context of the larger experience of women. One envies Fox her friends all over the globe, her mobility, her seemingly boundlessly creative career. And yet we feel for her struggle, her past traumas and the things she has sacrificed to be ‘free’. Like the things we all sacrifice to be free. Maybe we’ve already been through it. Maybe we have yet to face it.

And of course one of the best parts of this monumental work, because it is monumental, is the way it captures the voices and experiences of the women who we don’t often hear from. Here is the Cambodian woman talking about how no man in her country will marry anyone who is not a Virgin, After a conversation with some sex workers, Fox happens to train her camera, while in her hotel restaurant, on a pair of Western (white) men, a Cambodian girl no older looking than 13, sitting silently next to them. Then there are the Pakistani women who keep telling Jennifer to put the camera away, fearful that someone might see it. Their husbands and brothers restrict their movement so that they cannot go anywhere or do anything without being monitored. Two are unmarried, but are clear that they cannot express any feelings of love for a man they might have. The Somali women in London graphically describe female genital mutilation.

And Fox’s own circle provides another context. The young friend who decides to stay home and have babies. Her mother, aunt and grandmother who all together raised her. Her friend with a brain tumor, another with ovarian cancer. These are our lives. But it by no means depressing or overwhelming. Nor is it maudlin or melodramatic. It is utterly and supremely hopeful because it does emphasize that may all be trapped whether we recognized it or not and therefore change is a necessity. Life cannot be about stasis, we can’t ever become to comfortable in our own experiences, regardless of how successful, worldly, oppressed, poor, rich or powerful. That is what it truly means to be free, and that is ultimately what Jennifer Fox has given us in this magnificent documentary.

You can see Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman on the Sundance Channel. You can also buy it from the website or rent it if you host a viewing party.

Written and directed by Jennifer Fox; produced by Jennifer Fox and Claus Ladegaard; Director of Photography, Jennifer Fox and Women All Over the World; edited by Niels Pagh Andersen and music composed by Jan Tilman Schade.

With:Jennifer, Pat, L’Dawn, Mindy, Theresa, Khosi, Ghihan, Caroline, Paromita, Svetlana, Chanthol, Shazia, Amina, Paula, Duska, Geraldine, Kye and Patrick.