What Is a Woman? (2022) – Cinematography Analysis

When I sat down to watch What Is a Woman? (2022), I had to tune out the massive political storm surrounding it. As a filmmaker, I’m interested in the “how.” How did the crew handle a global shoot? How did they keep the look consistent across completely different continents? Regardless of what you think of the film’s message, there is a lot to learn from its technical execution.

About the Cinematographer

Documentary work is a grind. You don’t get the luxury of a 12-hour pre-light or a controlled studio. For this project, the team was “traveling the world,” jumping from sterile academic offices to the middle of the African bush.

Even though the film doesn’t lean heavily on “star” cinematographer names in its marketing, you can tell there was a pro behind the camera. The real challenge here wasn’t just getting a “pretty” shot; it was the logistics. Keeping a consistent visual identity when you’re hopping between different cultures and lighting setups is incredibly difficult. They managed to give the film a cohesive “spine” so that it doesn’t feel like a collection of random YouTube clips, but a singular, professional feature.

Inspiration Behind the Cinematography

There’s a specific “postcard” look to this film that caught my eye. It’s got an old-school, journalistic travelogue vibe think propeller planes and maps. It’s a deliberate choice.

By using this “postcard” aesthetic, the filmmakers are grounding a very chaotic, modern debate in something that feels timeless and objective. The wide, almost picturesque establishing shots make the world feel big and clear, which contrasts sharply with the tightly framed, high-pressure interviews. It’s a classic “investigative” visual strategy: show the big picture, then zoom in for the confrontation.

Lighting Style

This is where the technical skill really shows. The film jumps between offices, outdoors, and night scenes, but the skin tones stay remarkably consistent. That doesn’t happen by accident.

The crew clearly prioritized motivated lighting. Even in an office setting, they aren’t just blasting the subject with LEDs; they’re making it feel like the light is coming naturally from a window or a desk lamp. Speaking of windows shooting a subject against a bright window is a colorist’s nightmare. If you don’t have enough “fill” light on the person’s face, they turn into a silhouette, or the background becomes a white void. Here, they balanced the exposure perfectly. It’s clean, professional, and looks expensive without being “flashy.”

Color Grading Approach: A Colorist’s Perspective

This is my territory. As the guy behind Color Culture, this is what I look for first. The “postcard” feel I mentioned earlier comes alive in the grade.

Look at the opening “kids’ birthday party” scene. The colors are cranked up warm mid-tones, high saturation, and a soft highlight roll-off. It’s designed to feel idyllic and nostalgic. As a colorist, I’d be using hue separation to make those primary colors pop, creating a baseline of “normalcy” before the movie gets into the heavy stuff.

Throughout the rest of the film, the grade is surprisingly disciplined. We’re not seeing heavy “orange and teal” filters. Instead, it’s a naturalistic look with a “print film” feel. I noticed the shadows specifically; they aren’t “crushed” into pure black. There’s detail in the dark areas, which makes the image feel more organic and less “digital.” When we get to the more emotional segments, like Scott’s story, the color cools down. We lose that birthday-party warmth and move into a desaturated, somber palette. It’s subtle, but it tells the audience how to feel without being hitting them over the head with it.

Lensing and Blocking

The lens choices here scream “interrogation.” For the travel segments, they use wider glass (probably 24mm or 35mm) to let the environment breathe. It makes the world feel vast and Matt Walsh look like a small traveler within it.

But when it’s interview time? They clearly switched to longer lenses something in the 50mm to 85mm range. These lenses compress the features and pull the subject away from the background. It forces you to look at the interviewee’s eyes. The blocking is almost always “dead-on.” By having the subjects look directly into the lens (or just slightly off-camera), it creates an uncomfortable intimacy. It’s a visual way of demanding an answer, which fits the film’s “investigative” premise perfectly.

Compositional Choices

The composition is very formal. You see a lot of “Rule of Thirds” and center-framing. In the offices, they use depth cues like bookshelves or diplomas in the background to tell you who these people are before they even speak.

The most effective use of composition, though, is in the close-ups. When the film covers heavy topics, like the physical injuries mentioned by Scott, the camera moves in tight. It’s a standard doc move, but it’s executed well here. It strips away the “travelogue” fluff and forces a visceral reaction. The balance between those big “postcard” wide shots and these tight, uncomfortable close-ups is what keeps the pacing from feeling stagnant.

Technical Aspects & Tools

The film was shot in 4K, and you can tell. But for a colorist, 4K isn’t just about “sharpness” it’s about latitude.

When you have that much data, you can save a shot that was filmed in a rush. If an interview was framed slightly off because the subject moved, you can crop in without losing quality. Based on the highlight handling, they were likely using high-end cinema cameras (I’d guess Sony FX9s or ARRI Alexas). These cameras capture a massive dynamic range, which is why the window shots I mentioned earlier don’t look like a mess. In my studio, working with 4K footage like this in DaVinci Resolve is a dream because it gives me the “room” to shape the light after the fact.

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