Ironing
Lynne Conroy's film ‘Ironing’ interprets a portion of Tillie Olsen's work 'As I Stand Here Ironing'. Through the memories of a woman at her ironing board it lays before us the history of a mother-daughter relationship and its ever-changing conflicts and pleasures, always framed within a domestic context. Unusually, the story is told from the older woman's point of view. From the opening close-up on a shining, hissing iron, through the briefly glimpsed flashbacks then returning to the present, the mood is quietly sympathetic. Each shot precise yet gentle, imbuing the black and white images with a controlled tenderness that never slips into sentimentality.
I wanted to make a film whose source is our common love for each other even if that love has been rooted in pain and separation. Aesthetically I wanted to create frames that protest the degradation of women's bonds and fragmentation of ourselves.
– Lynne Conroy
In a kitchen alive with rich textures and fabrics, utensils and whatnots, we are introduced to a mother... The story flows in an almost stream-of-consciousness as she reflects and irons. She thinks as she irons ‘I stand here ironing and what you asked me moves tormented back and forth with the iron.’
– Susie Chancey
Description source: Circles Catalogue (circa 1983). Compiled by Helen MacKintosh and Margaret Gillan. Edited by Felicity Sparrow.