Period: The End of Menstruation?

Giovanna Chesler's Period: The End of Menstruation? begins as an investigation into the new contraceptive drugs—Seasonale, Depo-Provera, and Librel—that allow women to shorten or stop their menstruation for months or years at a time. But it then segues into the feel of a more casual cross-country road-trip, as Chesler visits gynecologists, psychologists, endocrinology specialists, health educators, and researchers—as well as women of diverse racial, social, and cultural backgrounds—who all discuss menstruation and the role these new drugs play (perhaps most controversial, the use of these drugs as an increasingly common convenience marketed to teens). The debate here is rich and varied: those who argue in favor of menstrual suppression claim that many women would gladly give up monthly periods if it were safe to do so. But the film also raises questions about what is “normal” menstruation (given the medical fact that due to increasing life spans and late pregnancies women today are actually bleeding twice as long as our ancestors), and, ultimately, what makes a woman a “woman.” Discussions about feminism, sexuality, and gender are broached by a wide variety of men and women (including doctors, a transsexual, a woman who paints exclusively with her menstrual blood, and another woman who has developed a menstrual museum), intercut with footage that includes a health educator teaching pre-adolescents about a woman's menstrual cycle, couples celebrating at the San Diego Vagina Fest, snippets of presentations at a conference for the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research, exercises at the Women's Wisdom Weekend Menstruation Workshop, and roundtable discussions among groups of women, friends, and families throughout the country reminiscing about first “periods” and the importance of menstruation in their lives. An interesting documentary on that time of the month, this is definitely recommended. Aud: C, P. (A. Cantú)