NOW ON TUBI! Get ready to outrun the wind with director Indy Saini’s definitive female biker documentary Women in the Front Seat. Saini embarks on a cross-country trip across the US on a motorcycle for her feature-length debut. Saini’s father was from Punjab and passed his love of riding on to her. Saint chronicles segments of her trip, including the long roads and wrestling with the weather. Along the way, she interviews other women from all over who own and ride their own bikes. They are from all walks of life across every stratum and spectrum in this land. Some are weirdos, some are normal, and some are both, like the woman who is an androgynous model by night and a cop during the day.
Stereotypes about women who ride crumble quickly, especially the story one woman tells when asked if she is a d**e on a bike, and she runs home to ask her husband what that means. We are introduced to women’s motorcycle clubs, such as the Victory Riders and the New Mexico chapter of The Femme Fatales. All the participants confirm how much more fun it is riding in the driver’s seat of a motorcycle. The world of two wheels is thoroughly explored through a female perspective. The insights provided make Saini’s film one of the most profound motorcycle documentaries ever made.
“…interviews other women from all over who own and ride their own bikes. They are from all walks of life…”
I remember two wheels. For a period of five years in my teens, my wife and I rode scooters as our only means of transportation. It was affordable, and the Arizona climate allows year-round riding. It was on my Vespa that I discovered two-wheel motoring is the closest I have ever felt like I was flying with a cape. The way the air splits around you as your body hurdles through the air mere feet from the ground is indescribable. So is the feeling of your body hurdling into asphalt, which is why I stopped. However, I noticed how bikers and other scooter mods would nod at each other in passing. While most picture biker culture through the outlaw gangs on TV, the landscape of motorized balancing acts is a lot more varied. Everyone has two things in common: A) You are marked for death by the four-wheel vehicles, which will run you down without seeing you, and B) you will have the time of your life while you still got it. This is the world I recognized in Women in the Front Seat. The footage is radical, with lots of those almost fetishistic detailed shots of the motorcycle components. Lots of spinning wheels to balance out the talking heads.
Outside selections from the song catalog of Steppenwolf, Judas Priest, and Motorhead, there aren’t many artistic renditions of how it feels to ride. Saini’s contribution is invaluable. While filtered through a prism of gender, her subjects’ oratories on riding are some of the most eloquent ever filmed. It is because they are not expected to ride that motivates these women to elaborate on what riding is like, with spectacular results. I can’t remember another documentary describing the motorcycle riding experience in this much detail. I guess no one filming dudes on bikes ever asked them what riding felt like and got an answer that didn’t compare it to sex. With Women in the Front Seat, the audience is treated to a real taste of straddling a bolt of chrome lightning. Saini showcases both the exhilaration and the exhaustion associated with the act. She lets you know how sore the saddle can get when riding all day, a fact of the road not talked about much. I was also intrigued by how the women added modifications that allowed easier clutch shifting and injury reduction. Women in the Front Seat is to motorbikes what Endless Summer was to surfboards. Even if your feet never leave the ground or a floor mat, you need to see Women in the Front Seat just to get that brief, fleeting rush of racing the wind and beating the wind’s a*s.
For screening information, visit the Women in the Front Seat official website.
