Sisters with Transistors

2020

Action / Documentary / Music

4
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Certified Fresh 97% · 31 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 73%
IMDb Rating 7.4/10 10 1182 1.2K

music history pioneer women electronic music experimental music

Please enable your VPΝ when downloading torrents

If you torrent without a VPΝ, your ISP can see that you're torrenting and may throttle your connection and get fined by legal action!

Get Expert VPΝ

Plot summary

Think of early electronic music and you’ll likely see men pushing buttons, knobs, and boundaries. While electronic music is often perceived as a boys' club, the truth is that from the very beginning women have been integral in inventing the devices, techniques and tropes that would define the shape of sound for years to come.

Director

Lisa Rovner Photo
Lisa Rovner

Top cast

Suzanne Ciani Photo
Suzanne Ciani as Self
Brian Hodgson Photo
Brian Hodgson as Self
Bebe Barron Photo
Bebe Barron as Self
Charles Amirkhanian Photo
Charles Amirkhanian as Self
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
785.66 MB
1280*964
English 2.0
18+
Subtitles us  
25 fps
1 hr 25 min
Seeds 5
1.58 GB
1424*1072
English 5.1
18+
Subtitles us  
25 fps
1 hr 25 min
Seeds 4

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by R T 6 / 10

We just saw this documentary, freshly released, and

We just saw this documentary, freshly released, and we were really excited about it. It was pretty compelling material, in that it's both counter-cultural and also like a period piece looking back on "the future" as it was becoming, from a time before we were born. And it's true, the characters we see are all amazing women - amazing for their times, for our times, for any times, and truly unique creative geniuses in their own rights. There's no mistaking the vital memory being activated. We were primed to love this documentary. What's compelling is the subject matter, which deserves a really strong artistic retelling. So the content is super rich. The stories of these pioneering women in the hands-free, no-trodden-path world of electronic music is super interesting. But. The actual documentary isn't up to the demands of the stories and the material, and there's a brace or two of ironies. First, the narrative reminded us of the structure of an academic dissertation or research project. Without incorporating the power of the visual medium, the storytelling looks at each woman as a kind of module, not even as a proper vignette, going through her material and her background, then drudging on to the next subject-chapter, and then the next, and then the next, with a final tying together that feels like shoehorning. What little narrative here is, is tedious. It's more subject-catalogue than coherent artistic vision, which is incredibly ironic, given that the material is the art of very inspired and talented artists. Second, the thesis the work is articulating is strong, a kind of Girrl-Power history of electronic music, but if we're to go just by the documentary, it's too gappy. First, without a strong narrative and without tying the modules on each composer together, it's not clear there's any real binding force (even in misogyny) in the various stories. Second, there are obvious voids in the narrative about electronic music, even to those like us without a lot of knowledge, and this gap is likely filled with men. They don't need to be celebrated, but they could have been used to highlight the powerful contributions of these women. It appears more like they were inconvenient, so left out, thus leaving the story of electronic music fragmentary, even for the women. You see glimpses - one artist is married, and her husband matches technical skills to her composing, and Jean Michel Jarre appears for an instant. But the "Taciturn" omission of what appears to be a chunk of framing history seems poorly considered. A bit more would have at least made the feminist thesis much more compelling. We could only speculate as to why this was done. Maybe it was to emphasize voice, to decentre maleness, or because the director was unclear about the wider narrative of electronic music; who knows? Regardless of why, the result is not ideal, and it strangely both fronts but also subtracts from the thesis. Third, there's another intense irony. The sound editing is weak. For a documentary on electronic music and sound, the editing produces muddy, cloudy sound that lacks sharpness or richness, or clear tones. The murky editing fails to play well with volume or timing, so that it's hard to actually hear a lot of the dialogue; you have to strain to make much of it out. The music sometimes lacks depth, power, richness or its obvious encompassing immersion, and it competes with and obscures dialogue. Adding another irony, a documentary meant to give voice, through sloppy editing, actually deadens and obscures it. Fourth, the video imagery could have been better, too. Instead of a tight focus on the women as people, as composers, as people and architects of their times, we get some cutesy, atmospheric, but also generic B-roll video subbed in, with weirdly juvenile snar-castic references to 1950's homemaker hypocrisy and all the usual patriarchy references, none of it particularly clever. It seemed more like tiresome cliche-feminism than anything else, effortless, lazy, predictable and charmless. Lastly, what really disappointed us was that we're left with no clear picture as to how these remarkable women shaped the future of electronic music. There's no "impact statement", no vectored arrow to the future showing how they directly and indirectly inspired others. Was this because some of the people who owe these founding women so much might be men, and thus aren't mentionable? If so, this is the irony of the self-abnegating kind of voice that the director used. I'd like to know more about how these women's geniuses live on and how they generated the evolution of electronic music. I'm sure it's no small thing. This afterlife of their genius should have been a (if not the) major focus of a documentary like this, and its absence is really strongly felt. The artists and bands that owe these women gargantuan debts, perhaps unpayable, must be groups like Aphex Twin, Krafkwerk, Tangerine Dream, Enigma, The Future Sound of London, Bjork, Art of Noise, Morcheeba, Isao Tomita, even Daft Punk. But if this genius transfuses from the these women's minds into our veins today, we see precious little to nothing of that from this documentary. There's some sentimentality, but of the cheap "patriarchy sucks" variety. The higher road would have been hugely more interesting, perhaps telling us more than why patriarchy is bad, but also showcasing why these women were absolutely great. They deserve that. The documentary kind of fails as a chronicle or biography. For a documentary about the genius of self-created technique and art, its flaws also make it weirdly artless and careless. In the end, the thesis is itself something like cliche-feminism with a sophomoric masters-thesis aftertaste, really just a fist-pump in the air. That's fine, for what it is, but the impression we had was more of a huge lost opportunity. The people who are giving this rave reviews seem to mostly be praising the material and the care given to showcase the women as they were/are, which is absolutely where credit is due. But we felt that the women whose genius was centre-stage deserved better. It could and should have been so much more.
Reviewed by Noah S 7 / 10

I had to watch this for a class

I had to watch this for a class I’m in, but very fascinating techno music!
Reviewed by bln-37131 7 / 10

I want more of this

But only with more diversity of women.

An article made me aware that this movie only features western European descendent or white women.

While it is an omage to people being overlooked it overlooks others.

A woman to many people is still mainly a white woman.

But even in electronic music there were many women of none European descendent who contributed.

I am myself fascinated with the amount of women in electronic music and this movie came out when I started to understand that I as a woman feel home in modular synthesis and electronic music.

Even more fascinated was I when seeing that there were woman like me before literally pioneering the field I feel home in.

Even more women who were and think or thought like me. Like role models I was always craving as I grew up.

I don't look at people based on their appearance. To me every woman is a woman and I was flattered seeing other women doing wonderful things. But know I am left wondering why there are only white women in the movie.

I don't think anyone had any racial intention here. It is just the white women were more easily to be rediscovered. But there are so many more out there. Women of all cultures.

It is only reflecting how much more powerful we women are if we keep digging deeper.

The reasons women of color are overlooked are the same why women in general were oberlooked. Stereotypes.

Now they try to break with stereotypes of white women thinking they were representing all women. But no.

This movie is an attempt to break with stereotyoes but it is not going far enough and is deepening stereotypes.

To be honest, I was a bit bored by the movie. I felt there was so much more to all those stories of great women and at some point I felt the makers ran out of money or so.

I think if more money would gave been 8nvested they could have and wpuld have be allowed to dig deeper.

The trailer was great, but the movie lacked the same power.

If this had been a documentry about men much more money would have been invested toshow their stories in the exciting way it was.

I recommend the movie, because for it to be of so much importance. But I believe this is just the beginning of something bigger giving all the talented women of electronic music the light they deserve to be represented in no matter what origine they were or are.

7 stars for I love how the existence of that movie moticate me becoming a woman of electronic music.

Read more IMDb reviews

8 Comments

Be the first to leave a comment