Zoe Lund: The Real Ms. 45
Above Image: Zoe Lund
Life is in a constant state of harmony and balance between the abhorrent and righteousness. Part of the experience of human continuation disarranges this harmonious relationship between good and evil. Human experience is imperfect in practically every aspect. Writer, actress, model, and musician Zoe Lund deliberates these dilemmas through an extensive body of work in film, short essays, and poems. Her extreme political activism and feminism displayed throughout her works are both thought-provoking and eyebrow-raising, as heroin seems to play a large role in her cognitions. Lund’s roles as both a writer and actress in the film “Ms. .45” and “Bad Lieutenant” depict this tumultuous relationship between wrongdoing, revenge, evil and good.
New York City native Zoe Lund is of Swedish and Romanian descent, the combination making for the origins of her modelesc beauty, landing her a career in modeling and acting. However, as a young girl she displayed a tremendous talent and interest in composing music and writing. These talents would serve her later in her career as she became a writer, director, and actor in several films and cult classics such as “Ms. 45,” “Bad Lieutenant,” and “Hot Ticket.” She also played roles in “Special Effects,” “The Self Destruction of Gia,” “Heavy Petting,” and “Exquisite Corpses.”
Zoe’s aptness for picking up instruments quickly and composing music was profound. However, she thought that writing, specifically for films, allowed her to facilitate her strong notions about activism and feminism. While working as an assistant to film maker, critic, and political activist Edouard (Yves) de Laurot, Zoe meets film director Abel Ferrera. She was then cast at the young age of only 19 as the main character, Thana, in “Ms. 45.” Lund also assisted in writing and directing the cult classic.
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Above Image: Official Ms.45 (1981) poster- via IMDb
“Ms. .45” is the story of a mute garment worker in New York City who gets attacked and raped twice in one day. Armed with a .45 caliber handgun, the good girl gone bad seeks revenge on just about every man who crosses her. Unfortunately, Thana’s rampage ends in unfair tragedy. Thana’s innocence is destructively taken from her, in her grief and fear, she turns to animosity and malice towards all men - understandably so.
These themes of good turned bad, and vice versa are common constituents of Zoe’s films, she divulges this further in “Bad Lieutenant.” A NYC corrupt and drug ridden cop tries to find a path to redemption by avenging a nun who was the victim of a rape crime. His path to this perceived “redemption” is constantly curved by drugs, alcohol, sex, and his own stream of perturbed consciousness. The bad cop's path to “goodness” is not made easy by the nun who refuses to give details of her attackers in her own good faith. She claims to have forgiven her rapist. This further troubles the disturbed cop who cannot comprehend her mercy.
Above Image: Official Bad Lieutenant (1992) Poster- via IMDb
In Lund’s films, the powers of good and evil are often out of balance as one side takes things too far, further straying the character away from sanity. Zoe and her drug use, specifically heroin, facilitated her opinions about taking problems head on, finding clarity, and taking things for what they are. Although her messages about political activism, and feminism are hard to determine from her discussion of drug use, drugs and crime are a commonality in both her work in film and her short essays.
In Zoe’s short essay titled “Heroine Is” she asserts [that] “other drugs are drugs of illusion. Heroin is the drug of disillusion. Thus, on heroin, “all acts are acts of will and are pure.” Lund claims that heroin allows her not to avoid, but to feel the anguish-taking the stance of facing problems and life’s tribulation as they are. This leads her to the assumption that when a woman is raped and told that she is a victim she is accepting the fate that she has been defiled to the core, her soul stolen; that her one and only existence lays in her sexual organs. In Zoe Lund’s poem, “A Ship with 8 Sails,” she discusses how women don’t have to accept this degrading existence if they make the decision that their sexual organs are not the bane of their continuance. “You don’t have to choose to be a victim if you don’t want to,” Zoe claims: “While I was being raped, my soul was elsewhere. That man got nowhere near me. He was stuck in a hole. I was far away.” Your soul is yours to decide where it may lay.”
Above Image: Zoe Lund and her early husband Robert Lund (1986)
photographed in a nightclub photo booth-via Zoelund.com
It is important to reiterate that Zoe did not like to refer to drug use as an addiction, rather merely a means of obtaining a state of consciousness completely free from aberration. The conclusions and theories about life, death, crime, love, and hate that she devises while under the influence of heroin are elaborated in further detail in the film. Lund likes to emphasize that Thana fails to use her unfortunate circumstance to turn hate into love. (The rape crime committed on Thana) becomes something virtuous. In response to these horrible acts committed on Thana, she instead turns to rebellion and revenge by killing every man that crosses her path. This rebellion turns to thrill as Thana takes her hatred for men too far when people start to figure out that she is responsible for the murder of hundreds of innocent men. This ultimately ends in more tragedy for Thana.
We see in “Bad Lieutenant,” from the perspective of a drug-ridden man, a woman (the nun), who uses hate (the rape crime committed on her) and turns it into love by showing mercy towards her perpetrators. The nun finds peace within the violence bestowed upon her at the hands of a man, something that most people would be incapable of doing or comprehending. The point that she is trying to make with these two films is that women who seek violence as means of revenge are often left with a brutal fate, as revenge for women almost never unfolds fairly. By nature, the opposite sex (men) will always be victorious. Rather than seeking revenge, seeking peace is the more onerous thing to do, and it takes a certain level of self-certainty to do so. The mercy that the nun has, and her ability as a woman to turn hate into love, are powerful as she faces her issues head on, forgive, and let go.
Above Image: Zoe Lund still from Ms. 45
Zoe Lund’s thought-provoking dogma is both logical and extreme as her drug use makes it hard to discern these theories at times. The mix and promotion of drugs also makes it difficult to legitimize the intentions of Lund’s extreme liberalism and virtuousness. Nevertheless, her deep-rooted appreciation for female actuality and dedication for feminism in her films is a timeless and underappreciated effort.
Zoe Lund passed away at the young age of 37 to a lung infection that turned into heart failure (not drugs). Abel Ferrera reported that her French boyfriend had gotten her into shooting up cocaine around the time of her untimely death. Her boyfriend at the time refused to let her go to the hospital for fear that they would be sought for dealing cocaine. By the time she got to a doctor, it was too late, she passed five days later. Lund’s career as a writer, actress, model, activist and her entity as a female continues to arouse female film writers and makers as well as touch the lives of girls all over the world.
Article by Emily Simon, Contributor, PhotoBook Magazine
Tearsheets by Alexa Dyer, Graphic Designer, PhotoBook Magazine