Women, on the other hand, are allowed more emotional latitude, although anger remains problematic. For both sexes one of the main releases from all this grimness is popular music. From the dance-crazy daughters of Distant Voices to the interminable rounds of pub singing in Still Lives, music is the balm which makes these tough lives bearable. The women seem to be the most enthusiastic singers. The men appear to be a little uncertain about whether or not this is a suitably masculine activity; they sing most comfortably in a military context

One by one, each of the three sisters gets married and moves away from her father's house. The eldest girl particularly seems doomed to repeat her mother's unhappy story. We wince as we hear her new husband declare "You're married now. I'm your husband. Your duty is to me now. Frig everybody else."

As his sisters depart, Tony begins to feel more and more isolated both physically and emotionally. He, unlike many other men, will not go happily into the masculine emotional night; at his own wedding he sobs profusely. As the youngest child and the last to be wed, the new responsibilities of family life burn in him like a wound. For Tony, as for many of the others, only the healing powers of art and song and memory remain.

Distant Voices/Still Lives is often as non-linear and illogical as memory and poetry. It contains images of astonishing beauty, which work through tone and rhythm in much the same way as does the music the director and his characters so obviously love.

Among the films screened in this year's Perspectives Canada program was Inside/ Out, a half-hour drama by Toronto director Lori Spring. Inside/Out tells the tale of Joanna, a woman afflicted with an acute case of existential agoraphobia. Unlike the women in Accomplices and the people in Distant Voices/Still Lives, Joanna's isolation appears to be self-imposed.

We are not told how this alienation came about, only given indications of its existence. From the unnerving wail of a siren to the harried faces of pedestrians, everything Joanna notices confirms her present state of mind and reinforces her decision to retreat.

Joanna's decision to withdraw from the world may stem from impending panic, but her methods are calm and controlled, and her resources fairly bountiful. She lives in a spacious loft, has plenty of trendy furniture and the latest electronic and exercise equipment She can afford to have her food delivered, has friends who are willing to run errands for her and can exercise her profession (she's a writer) at home. She is not Every-woman.

Joanna's coolness initially makes it difficult to like her, but Emma Richter's sympathetic performance gradually draws one in. Joanna eats healthful, exercises regularly and works steadily. For someone who complains of feeling disembodied she certainly takes good care of herself both physically and mentally, unlike many women whose isolation is due to depression, not philosophy. The only thing Joanna seems to lack is a personal life.

This overriding rationality both attracts and repels the viewer. The orderliness of her life is appealing. And most of us have, many times, felt overwhelmed by a world crowded with people and information, obligations and expectations. Anyone who has endured the frustration of trying to find a quiet public comer, restaurant or elevator will understand her complaint that "we have lost any contact with the wisdom of silence."

Yet all this reasonableness is disquieting.

Joanna explains her condition by saying "I must live carefully because I am not carefree." If she were ill or had family responsibilities, this statement would be more credible. "Beyond these walls," she continues, "I become a prisoner of circumstance," and so she circumscribes her own prison.

After a while one begins to suspect that underneath all that calmness swirls turbulence. Our suspicions are confirmed as we watch Joanna tattoo a butterfly on her arm. The desire for decoration is a longing for something beyond the purely functional, and the painful procedure is also an indication of her need to pierce the shell of her rationality and let a little chaos through. It is also a sign that certain events which she will not be able to control as easily as that tattooing needle will soon penetrate the skin of her isolation.

While Joanna may not physically leave her apartment she continues to interact with the world through machines (telephone, computer, answering machine and a video camera). She also allows selected elements of the outside world to enter her domain: the grocery delivery boy, her mother, and friends for a dinner party. Of all these machines the pivotal one is the video camera, through which she initiates contact with the elderly woman across the street and through which she attempts to communicate her plight to her dinner guests.

We never see her watch television; we hear only the radio in the background. Television, because it has both pictorial and auditory elements, has a verisimilitude that radio does not. But a televised version of events is as mediated, constructed and false (and true) as that of any other medium. Joanna's reaction to her own feelings of unreality is to simulate contact with the world through her video camera. She wants contact with the old woman, but can only make a parodic connection by taping her. Occasionally, their eyes meet and they communicate in mute gestures like players in a silent film.

Mrs. Ambrose's situation is the reverse of Joanna's: as an elderly woman, her isolation is physical and unwilled, not conceptual and voluntary. Jackie Burroughs' performance in this small role is simply amazing; without saying a single word, she conveys a wealth of emotions.

Try as they will, neither individuals nor nations can completely control their boundaries. Joanna's dinner guests bring along a visiting American artist, Eric. He doesn't belong to their circle, he's a bit of a jerk, and his insistent questions (which border on rudeness) upset Joanna's complacency with her routine: "If you don't go out," he maintains, "you 're not dealing with anything." In a scene just prior to this, we hear a radio news report about immigration.

Eric's words prove prophetic. Once again it becomes hard to sympathize with Joanna as she frets about what to do about the obviously deteriorating Mrs. Ambrose.

Inside/Out, which won the award for best film under 30 minutes and best music score at the 1988 Yorkton Film Festival, works both intellectually and emotionally, (with a few minor reservations on the emotional side). Lori Spring works well with actors and is a talented writer to boot. It all augurs well for her future films.