“If there’s specific resistance to women making movies, I just choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons: I can’t change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies”.

A strong determined woman can achieve anything, even if she has to compete in the men dominated field. This is what Katheryn Bigelow demonstrated at the 2010 Academy Awards ceremony. Her film The Hurt Locker received most of the awards, including the top honors – for the best film and for the best director. A war-thriller, a masculine film about classical embodiments of masculinity – the soldiers, it made Bigelow the first woman in the long history of the Awards to receive the Oscar for the best director. Not only is her victory an inspiring exemplar for female directors and other women who are not afraid of difficulties and competition, it also carries a significant connotation with regard to the contemporary filmmaking, as well as the meaning and purpose of the cinema in modern culture.

Most of her works are unknown to the wide audience. Only two have brought her recognition: Near Dark (1987) has received the Silver Raven at the Brussels International Film Festival of Fantasy Film, and Strange Days (1995), for which she was honored with Saturn Award for Best Direction. Bigelow’s filmography is abundant in tension and action, and is surprisingly masculine thematically. Her characters are police officers, bank robbers, soldiers, those for whom danger and violence are inalienable attributes of everyday life.

There is more to Bigelow’s filmmaking than just tough plotline. The Hurt Locker is an impressionist picture. Filmed in amateur fashion, full of street sounds and authentic Middle East landscapes, sunsets in the desert and close tracking of the characters’ actions and movements, the movie immerses the viewer into the dangerous world of American bomb disposers in Iraq.

Yet, Bigelow’s task was more than just a realistic illustration of the soldiers’ daily routine. The Hurt Locker’s underlying message, which appears in the beginning as an epigraph reads: “The War is a Drug”. This is the reason for going to war. Willie James, main protagonist, a real virtuoso in bomb disposal, lives every day like his last day. He gambles his life and so far he wins. His victories ignite his desire for more risk, making him addicted to constant thrill. Without war, he suffers from withdrawal pains.

A masculine film made by woman. The Hurt Locker is a woman’s approach to war filmmaking. There are no battles; the enemies are not shown. The movie is primarily about people. Although it is a war movie, the war itself lingers on the background. With this film Bigelow strived to understand what makes men choose the war, and she succeeded in detecting the irrepressible thirst for risk in the main character.

At the Academy Awards, The Hurt Locker had to compete with technological 3D monster Avatar, directed by Bigelow’s ex-husband James Cameron. Avatar was expected to win all the top Oscar honors, yet the Academy awarded Bigelow’s low-budget war drama instead. The Hurt Locker’s victory demonstrates that the key to artistic quality of the film is not in technology and the visual appeal, but in the contents. Avatar is a beautiful fairytale, full of rich colors and three-dimensional butterflies, but it lacks a human element and is far from harsh reality. In the midst of obsession with computer graphic, Katheryn Bigelow brought viewer’s attention back to what is happening in human mind. She showed soldier’s emotional experience – vividly and intimately. She did it skillfully. And certainly deserved to be the first woman to become Oscar’s best director.