Lydia Lunch: The War is Never Over – FILM POP

Lydia Lunch is still fighting. Across her decades-long career, the performer, writer, poet, actress, and self-empowerment guru has never stopped professing her distinct and transgressive brand of feminism alongside the universal themes of injustice, power imbalances, and survival. Legendary director Beth B—a longtime collaborator of Lunch’s from the days when she led the influential no wavers Teenage Jesus and the Jerks—dips into her archive and turns her camera yet again onto the queen of the underground in this thrilling and illuminating retrospective. Along for the ride, among others, are Donita Sparks, Richard Kern, Kembra Pfahler, Nicolas Jaar, and Thurston Moore (who is incidentally becoming the most prolific music doc talking head of our time). A portrait every bit as raw and uncompromising as its subject, it is also a renewed, much-needed call to action.