UNLEASH: THE JOSEPHINE DECKER STORY
The 2014 rural thriller Thou Wast Mild and Lovely by Josephine Decker begins with a rush of unbridled energy and emotion. A father and daughter are play-fighting in the grass with a dead chicken. The daughter is a bit too old for this and the way they move together is too intimate. They thrust and stab each other with it. They roll around in the ground together, tossing it back and forth. The moment is uncomfortably sexual, which is further amplified by the opening narration: “For all my life, I missed my lover. I wanted my lover. I wanted to be near my lover. But the way my lover opened and closed my legs, the way my lover unfolded me into my lover’s breast… My lover knows how to love me. But things kept getting in the way of my lover, and I could not be with my lover until now.”
These words are heard over images of grass which segues to a shot of an agitated farm dog with big eyes and walnut fur. The words are mesmerising, and immediately
