Foreign Films – Bitch Flicks

‘The Tribe’: Navigating the Beauty and Horror of Silent Children

The film moves through arcs of pity, empathy, and then downright horror. Violence is abrupt and can come from anyone. I was blessed to watch the film with an audience that was one third deaf, and the experience of witnessing visceral scenes with the sounds of hands pounding, slapping, moving around me with frantic finger blurs of American Sign Language made the viewing electric.

“The silent pictures were the purest form of cinema; the only thing they lacked was the sound of people talking and noises. In many of the films now being made, there is very little cinema. They are mostly what I call ‘photographs of people talking.’ When we tell a story in cinema, we should resort to dialogue only when it’s impossible to do otherwise.”

Alfred Hitchcock in Hitchcock, by François Truffaut

Writer/Director Miroslav Slaboshpitsky said in an interview that he was inspired to write his film The Tribe because he attended a school that was near a school for the deaf when he was younger. (Incidentally, Slaboshpitsky filmed The Tribe at his old school.) There were fights from time to time between students from his school and the deaf students. He carried these memories for many years, finally unleashing them in a film that has gathered both praise, and in some places, ridicule for being a gimmick film, a one-trick pony only being celebrated because it is a story told completely in Ukrainian Sign Language.

There are no subtitles, no voice-overs, no music or sound design. The only sounds we hear are natural noises around the actors–à la dogme films— when they move within rooms slamming doors, are in cars, are outside walking in snow, or the excited vocal inflections emitted from an agitated signer who often uses sharp finger pokes and hand slaps to catch the attention of people not looking them in the eye. Viewing the film is pretty close to Hitchcock’s idea of “pure cinema.” Viewers don’t even know the names of the characters because our eyes have to do all the work, and we are basically resorted to assigning actors descriptive traits for names like New Kid, Kingpin, Boss Man, Blonde homegirl, and Brunette homegirl to track folks. (After viewing the film, I had to go online and check to see if the actors were even assigned names.)

Not since the silent films during the pre-sound era assigned to me during college have I experienced a film where I had to work at understanding and interpreting human interactions with visuals only. The fascinating part of Slaboshpitsky intentionally making viewers work at comprehension is that my interpretation of the film might be completely different from someone else.

Sergey (Grigoriy Fsenko) is a deaf high school student who tries to fit into his new boarding school and becomes ensnared in a criminal enterprise ran by a gang of older male students and a woodshop teacher. They are into everything. Petty theft, burglary, prostitution, bullying, and assaults on other students. These kids are the poster children for Thug Life Ukraine.

For the first ten minutes of the film, we are forced to orient ourselves. What may appear to be a slow and tedious start is really narrative time designed to acclimate and settle hearing viewers into leaning on visual cues full throttle. We become Sergey trying to figure out the place and its pecking order. Sergey is given instant sympathy because he has no idea what he is getting himself into. He can barely find a room and a bed to occupy before he’s pushed around and forced to sleep in the hallway on his first night. Eventually Sergey is jumped into the “gang” and the film branches out to the other characters. We are witness to the evening prostitution where two teen-aged girls, who are part of the crew, are driven off campus to truck stops by the woodshop teacher and a student handler/pimp. The girls have quick hook-ups inside the trucks, the teen handler/pimp collects the money, and at the end of the night, the woodshop teacher drives them all back to school.

There are only two main female characters in The Tribe, a blonde and a brunette who are dorm roommates and apparently best friends. It would be easy for me to write that they are just objects used throughout the film. They are. But all the underlings in the gang are objects. All bodies are commodities used for profit, from the elementary-aged boys sent out to sell cheap souvenirs on the trains and streets (while also lifting a wallet and a purse or two), to the crews that roam the streets at night to roll over some unlucky citizen walking home at night with groceries.

Unfortunately for this film, the female presence is only used for sexual exploitation. The females are not calling any shots and aren’t bossing any underlings around. They are there to pleasure men. Perhaps it would be different if there were some teen-aged boys also being prostituted along with the girls when they were dropped off at the truck stop. Or at least more girls participating on the stroll and other girls involved in different parts of the criminal enterprise other than prostitution. At least there would be a balance and a sense of “it is what it is.” (I’m not advocating that seeing more girls pimped in the film makes it better in that world, but it might give a semblance of business is business and the female characters were there to make money and have agency for themselves too.) This shouldn’t deter people from seeing the film, it’s just my observation that sometimes screenwriters stick women in scripts for titillation purposes and not as fully realized characters integral to the plot.

There is a lot of sex in the film that isn’t romanticized. People fuck. And not for love. This leads to one of my favorite scenes in the movie. Anya (Yana Novikova) completes a night of sex work and Sergey (her new handler/pimp) walks her back to their dorm. As handler payment (a reward given to the guys who escort the two girls at night to the trucks), Anya hikes up her skirt inside a cold dirty room, bends over and offers her backside to Sergey to do what he will. It’s very clinical, no foreplay, just stick your penis here boy and be done. Sergey flips the encounter on Anya and makes a pallet on the floor and mounts her missionary style so he can see her face. He tries to kiss her, but she protests and turns her head. Eventually they switch positions again, and while sexually spooning her, he manipulates her clitoris and Anya appears aroused and surprised that a male would take time to pleasure her during the act. We watch everything in real time (and full nudity), and when they climax, Anya kisses him. It’s a lovely scene because the sex moves from a passionless unfeeling payment fuck for Anya, (although Sergey is clearly in love with her) into a tender moment where we witness the first sign of emotional connection between anyone in the film. It’s a plot point that eventually spirals the film toward a cringe-worthy abortion sequence and then onto its horrific conclusion.

The sex added a layer to Sergey’s character that I wasn’t expecting. The audience assumes from his earlier awkwardness that he was just a virginal follower, clumsy with girls, and knowing nothing. But watching their sex scene I was struck at how insistent he was at touching Anya in a particular way, moving her into positions not with awkward fumblings, but with an experienced need to please her. It was the first clue Sergey wasn’t what he seemed. Later in the film we find out that we were wrong about him from the start.

The conclusion of The Tribe reminded me of Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible. It is brutal and heart-wrenching in its abrupt closure. The film stays with you. I spent a few days trying to process what it meant to me as a viewer. Was my interpretation of the events correct? Did my eyes deceive me? What social clues did I miss because I don’t know Sign Language? The Tribe was pretty close to pure cinema. It has a seventies realism that I miss in movies today, and the actors look like regular people, not Hollywood augmented look-alikes. The cast is made up of deaf untrained actors who do a hell of a job bringing this world to life. It’s not a film for everyone, but I hope people will step out of their comfort zone to watch it. It will haunt you.

Staff Writer Lisa Bolekaja can be heard co-hosting Hilliard Guess’ Screenwriters Rant Room (the latest episode featuring Empire TV series writer Carlito Machete). Her most recent Sci Fi short story is in Uncanny Magazine, and she can be found on Twitter lurking in the tags #SaturdayNightSciFi and #FridayNightHorror @LisaBolekaja

Best Frenemies Forever

This guest post by Emanuela Betti appears as part of our theme week on Female Friendship.

Can women be friends? Or, most importantly, can two women who share the same man be friends? The depiction of genuinely loving and caring female friends has found its way onto many movies and TV shows, but when it comes to the idea of a more complex situation—the “frenemies”—it’s harder to find characters that do it justice. There is a shallow notion that when two women want the same man, they turn into hair-pulling, catfighting brats. Some movies, such as Mean Girls, present a world of two-faced friendships and passive-aggressive competitiveness, and although girls and women that act that way do exist, it’s refreshing to see a different take on the “frenemies” trope.

Female characters gain more depth when we realize that, despite their hatred for each other, they are still capable of maintaining a glimmer of respect for their enemy. In the past years, Scandal has been building up two of the most interesting frenemies on TV—Olivia Pope and Mellie Grant. Both women want the same man (President Grant), and both women have a different type of relationship with him—but Mr. President aside, throughout the show the two women develop a complex rapport with one another: one which undoubtedly has many instances of resentment and bitterness, but also a slowly developing sense of respect for the other person. It’s startling to watch Mellie’s resilient self-dignity—yet also vulnerability—when she asks Olivia to help with her husband’s campaign; there is also a sense of empathy on Olivia’s side when she discovers that Mellie was assaulted. If we really have to watch two women fight over the same man, it’s at least a relief when the two women are smart, self-reliant, and civilized beings.

The idea of complex female frenemies is not exactly new to cinema. Two superb foreign thrillers have managed to portray women who are sharing or have shared the same man, but they don’t succumb to the stereotype of the hair-pulling, backstabbing brats. Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Les Diaboliques (1955) and Kim Ki-young’s The Housemaid (1960) present a world in which women are not squealing for a man’s affection, but develop an interesting and emotionally complex alliance with the “other woman.”

Les Diaboliques is a French movie about a wife (Christina) and her husband’s mistress (Nicole) teaming up to murder the husband (Michel). Christina owns and runs a boarding school where Nicole teaches, and Michel exudes his authority as if he ran the place. The story begins as a simple murder story with two intriguing female protagonists, but halfway through it becomes a different movie—a creepy thriller in which the wife, Christina, is haunted by her dead husband’s ghost.

Despite the exciting twists and turns, it’s not so much the murder that drives the film, but rather the strange friendship between the two women. Christina is the typical mousy wife who allows her husband to beat and condescend to her; Nicole, on the other hand, is the typical femme-fatale bombshell, a hybrid between Betty Rizzo and Catherine Tramell from Basic Instinct (and I wasn’t surprised that the role was played by Sharon Stone in the 1996 American remake). The relationship between the women is rather intriguing, if not strange: Nicole was having an affair with Christina’s husband, but that is also what brings the two women together. Both get tired of the husband’s cocky and manipulative ways, so they decide to plan his murder.

During moments of calm, we watch Christina and Nicole discuss like old friends, complaining about him, and coolly remember how they hated each other—how a jealous Christina used to carry a knife around, and how Nicole might have wished for Christina’s death. There is a startling sense of dignity and respect for the other, which is often lacking when we’re faced with two women who competed for the affection of a man. Christina is often depicted as physically and emotionally weak, leading Nicole to affectionately treat her like a younger sister—even maternally, when for example she tells Christina not to bite her nails, in order not to give away her nervousness about the murder. Nicole is the only person that defends and consoles Christina when her husband degrades her in public, and during those moments we observe an unspoken yet mutual understanding between the two women who have been abused and mistreated by the same man.

Housemaid is a South Korean thriller about a young woman who is hired as a housemaid and ends up feuding with the woman of the household. To sum it up, The Housemaid is a long and twisted cautionary tale about the dangers of having an attractive and seductive young woman in the household, and how a casual affair can turn into a deadly game of manipulation. Events escalate dangerously and gruesomely, and even the innocent and sickly wife reveals an evil side. One of the interesting aspects of the story is the twisted relationship between the housemaid and the wife: the housemaid, despite her psychotic nature toward the husband and children, shows nothing but fear and submission in front of the wife. The wife strategically allows the other woman to remain in the household as a means to keep an eye on her and avoid a scandal.

The most twisted part is halfway though the movie, when both women “share” the husband. They’re not exactly friends, but it would be too easy to label them enemies; both women have an unspoken mutual understanding that the husband “belongs” to them, and they manipulate him to get at each other. Both women appear to know what limits the other woman can go to, and that kind of character relationship goes beyond the simple backstabbing teenagers in Mean Girls, or the comic strips in which Betty and Veronica are both tugging at Archie’s arms.

Emanuela Betti is a part-time writer, occasional astrologer, neurotic pessimist by day and ball-breaking feminist by night. She miraculously graduated with a BA in English and Creative Writing, and writes about music and movies on her blog.

Remembering Věra Chytilová

By Rachael Johnson

A few thoughts about the Czech filmmaker, Věra Chytilová, who died March 12 in Prague. She was 85. Chytilová was one of the key directors of the Czech New Wave and is renowned for her feminist classic, Daisies (1966). Experimental and surrealist, Daisies is an anarchic trip about two girls behaving badly and strangely. The exploits of Chytilová’s anti-heroines include cutting up and setting fire to stuff, disrupting a cabaret act at a chic club, wining and dining with older men (only to abandon them later at train stations), gate-crashing an opulent, official banquet, and starting a food fight. It is their merry, nihilistic response to their rotten, meaningless world. The look of the film is extraordinary- the colors change, the images and cuts daze- while the tone is, at once, provocative and exhilarating. Seek it out if you haven’t already experienced its anti-patriarchal, anti-establishment energy. Here’s to a great filmmaker. Rest in peace, Ms. Chytilová.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm9Gh8Fpy0c” title=”Daisies%20Clip:%20Food%20Fight”]

Portrait of a Thinker: A Review of ‘Hannah Arendt’

Directed by Margarethe von Trotta, ‘Hannah Arendt’ (2012) is not a comprehensive, A-Z biopic of the political philosopher. The veteran German director focuses, instead, on a remarkable, turbulent period in Arendt’s personal and professional life in the early sixties. Specifically, it chronicles the academic’s reporting of the 1961 trial in Jerusalem of Adolf Eichmann, the man responsible for the mass deportation of Jews to the death camps during the Shoah. The film begins with the capture of Eichmann in Argentina in 1960. The war criminal had settled in South America in 1950 after escaping to Austria at the end of the war. But we are soon transported to New York and introduced to the woman who endeavored to examine the motivations of the man who implemented the “Final Solution.”

Written by Rachael Johnson

Hannah Arendt was one of the leading political theorists of the 20^th century. Her work encompassed political action, power, violence, totalitarianism, and the nature of human evil. A German Jewish academic, Arendt was forced to flee the land of her birth in 1933. She moved to France where she worked for Jewish refugee organizations before being interned as an “enemy alien” during the German occupation of the country. With her second husband, the left-wing philosopher and poet, Henrich Blucher, Arendt managed to secure safe passage to the United States in 1941. She became a naturalized citizen in 1950 and taught at several prestigious universities such as Princeton and The New School.

Directed by Margarethe von Trotta, Hannah Arendt (2012) is not a comprehensive, A-Z biopic of the political philosopher. The veteran German director focuses, instead, on a remarkable, turbulent period in Arendt’s personal and professional life in the early 60s. Specifically, it chronicles the academic’s reporting of the 1961 trial in Jerusalem of Adolf Eichmann, the man responsible for the mass deportation of Jews to the death camps during the Shoah. The film begins with the capture of Eichmann in Argentina in 1960. The war criminal had settled in South America in 1950 after escaping to Austria at the end of the war. But we are soon transported to New York and introduced to the woman who endeavored to examine the motivations of the man who implemented the “Final Solution.”

Arendt covered the trial for The New Yorker and wrote a series of articles for the magazine. Her observations would be brought together in the book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on The Banality of Evil (1963). Arendt’s Eichmann was not a mythic monster but a mediocre man who entirely adhered to the murderous oaths and laws of the genocidal Nazi state. “Eichmann is no Mephisto,” Arendt observes in a Jerusalem café. According to the theorist, the war criminal was neither mentally ill nor personally driven by extreme racial prejudice. He possessed, instead, the mindset of a run-of-the-mill bureaucrat. Crucially, for Arendt, the war criminal was a conformist without imagination and remorse. He followed orders and never exercised independent thought. In such ways, Eichmann exemplified “the banality of evil.” Von Trotta skillfully weaves in film footage from the trial with the live action and we witness the real Eichmann: an inconspicuous-looking, bespectacled, middle-aged man armed with files. Arendt is struck by the war criminal’s language. Particularly telling for the philosopher is the statement: “Whether people were killed or not, orders had to be executed in line with administrative procedure.” The historical footage serves to reinforce Arendt’s thesis that the man was a disconnected, pen-pushing bureaucrat devoid of independent thought and moral responsibility. Arendt is repelled by the man and astonished by his manner and defense. As she will later say to friends in a heated debate, “You can’t deny the huge difference between the unspeakable horror of the deeds and the mediocrity of the man.”

The articles, understandably, proved deeply controversial and Von Trotta’s film chronicles the enraged responses and intense debate that followed their publication. As many in the Jewish community thought her interpretation served to minimize Eichmann’s evil, it was seen as a defense of the war criminal. Arendt’s criticism of certain Jewish council members during the Nazi era whom she accused of collusion was also read as victim-blaming. We see Arendt lose allies and receive hate mail from both strangers and neighbors. Old friends accuse her of being insensitive to Holocaust survivors and exhibiting a lack of empathy and love towards her own people. Arendt is not portrayed in von Trotta’s film as an unfeeling, unsympathetic character but as a truth-seeking intellectual. She is moved by harrowing testimony of Holocaust survivors (distressing footage from the trial is shown in the film) and haunted by their voices when she returns home to New York but she is also focused. Arendt is characterized as an independent thinker and a woman who did not define herself in terms of race and faith although she personally suffered persecution as a Jew in Nazi Germany. She tells Kurt Blumenfeld, a German-born Zionist friend now living in Israel, that she does not love peoples, only her friends.

Elchmann at his trial — Eichmann at his trial

At a lecture at The New School at the end of the film, Arendt defends her thesis. Eichmann embodied a terrible “thoughtlessness,” the political philosopher underlines. In relinquishing his personhood, his individuality, he relinquished independent thought and moral judgement. Arendt states, “This inability to think created the possibility for many ordinary men to commit evil deeds on a gigantic scale, the like of which had never been seen before.” Thinking is essential, for the philosopher: “I hope thinking gives people the strength to prevent catastrophes in these rare moments when the chips are down.” Arendt was accused of being an apologist for Eichmann but she thought that he was responsible for his failure to think. During the lecture, she expresses disgust at the label “self-hating Jew,” calling it a character assassination, and angrily insists that she never blamed Jewish people for their own deaths. She contends that the role of the Jewish leaders whom she accused of cooperation with Eichmann ultimately illustrated “the totality of the moral collapse” that the Nazis brought to Europe. Arendt believed, too, in the uniqueness of the Holocaust and thought that the war criminal should be executed for his genocidal crimes (he was hanged in 1962). “Trying to understand is not the same as forgiveness,” she states at the close of the film.

It is, however, understandable that charges of insensitivity and arrogance were leveled against Arendt. Eichmann was responsible for the greatest crime–the murders of millions of innocent men, women and children–and many did not accept Arendt’s characterization of the man as a “clown” and “nobody.” They also thought her description of the man’s immeasurable evil as “banal” fantastical and offensive. Arendt’s words and tone were attacked. Her comments about certain Jewish council leaders wounded many. We may also question the philosopher’s reading of the historical figure. Was it really the case that the man who implemented the “Final Solution” was not primarily motivated by anti-Semitism? Pointing to recordings of Eichmann expressing hatred against Jews, there are historians today who underscore Eichmann’s anti-Semitism and Nazi fanaticism. The film does give voice to opposing arguments by Arendt’s contemporaries. Hans Jonas (Ulrich Noethen), a German-born friend and New School philosopher, is deeply disturbed by her “abstract” thesis and stresses his calculated evil and central role in implementing mass murder.

Arendt’s observations about people who commit crimes against humanity were, nevertheless, important and original. They have also proven influential. If you look at more historically recent crimes against humanity, such as those committed during the Rwandan genocide, her argument is arguably illuminating and persuasive. It is entirely clear that thoroughly ordinary human beings are capable of engineering and enacting the most terrible atrocities. It is an infinitely terrifying thought that people have the capacity to murder their friends, colleagues and neighbors but it is one that people today have come to intellectually “accept” with greater frequency. We understand that men in suits may plan mass murder behind their desks. In short, demystifying evil has become commonplace. Arendt’s essential conceptions about “the banality of evil” and horrifying bureaucratic “thoughtlessness” and remove have contributed to our intellectual understanding of crimes against humanity.

Because of the difficulties of representing the creative process on the screen, biopics about writers and artists can be decidedly dull and sterile but von Trotta’s film is never boring. It is a particularly difficult task capturing the thinking process on film but it is fascinating watching Barbara Sukowa’s Arendt observe, and listen to, Eichmann on the closed-circuit television in the press room in Jerusalem. The subject matter is both intellectually stimulating and important- examining evil is essential, ethical work for artists and thinkers- while the storm surrounding the publication makes for a deeply political and human drama. Sukowa is magnetic as Arendt. Although the philosopher was attacked for her dispassionate stance and tone as well as ironic manner, von Trotta’s Arendt is ultimately portrayed as a sharp-witted, warm and humane woman who enjoyed loving and supportive personal relationships. She is, incidentally, the antithesis of the stereotypical cold, sexless intellectual woman of misogynist writers and directors.

We are also given intimate insights into the academic’s private and professional life in America. Arendt’s New York circle, peopled by American bohemians and German-American intellectuals who had fled Nazism, is quite vividly depicted. Janet McTeer provides support as Mary McCarthy. McCarthy was a good friend of Arendt and McTeer gives the writer sensuality and spirit. Arendt’s affectionate but unconventional marriage to the errant Blucher (Axel Milberg), an engaging fellow academic, is tenderly portrayed. There are, also, shortcomings regarding performances and characterization. Arendt’s students are cheesily adoring and a couple of turns by the supporting players are quite embarrassing.

Hannah Arendt is an involving portrait of the personal and intellectual life of the political theorist. Whether you believe that it offers a persuasive or hagiographic portrait of the thinker, von Trotta’s biopic chronicles an important debate in the history of modern political thought. Hopefully, it will (re)start conversations. Watching Hannah Arendt, you are also struck by how uncommon an experience it all is. There are not many biopics about thinkers and there are even fewer about history-making female intellectuals. Margarethe von Trotta, has, however, made other films about fascinating, iconoclastic figures in history (Rosa Luxemburg (1986), also starring Sukowa in the titular role, is one such biopic) and I hope the film encourages viewers to review or discover the veteran feminist director’s work.

A Study of a Singular Woman: A Review of ‘White Material’

‘White Material’ is about Maria Vial, a white Frenchwoman striving, in the face of mounting hostilities, to secure the coffee plantation she manages. French troops are assigned to evacuate their nationals but she refuses to leave the land she considers home. Superbly played by Isabelle Huppert, Maria is a profoundly complex character. Whether hanging on to the back of a bus heaving with humanity, or applying red lipstick as the world around her goes up in flames, her tenacity is shown to be incontestable and remarkable.

White Material, 2009 — *White Material*, 2009

Written by Rachael Johnson

Claire Denis has made remarkable films about both French colonial Africa and the immigrant experience in post-colonial France. In White Material (2009), Denis returns to the continent, to an unnamed, post-colonial, Francophone country in the throes of civil war. Interestingly, the script was co-written with French author Marie NDiaye. Although of different race, background and generation, both the writer and director have a close connection with French-speaking Africa and an intimate understanding of otherness: Parisian-born Denis grew up in colonial Senegal and Cameroon while Franco-Senegalese NDiaye was born and raised in France.

White Material is about Maria Vial, a white Frenchwoman striving, in the face of mounting hostilities, to secure the coffee plantation she manages. French troops are assigned to evacuate their nationals but she refuses to leave the land she considers home. Superbly played by Isabelle Huppert, Maria is a profoundly complex character. Whether hanging on to the back of a bus heaving with humanity, or applying red lipstick as the world around her goes up in flames, her tenacity is shown to be incontestable and remarkable. Maria is, however, a deluded single-minded woman. Her flaws are rooted in both her privileged white European background and singular personality. She may feel an attachment to African soil- indeed, she feels she belongs to the country- but we know that her struggle to save “her” coffee plantation shows supreme self-interest. She shows concern for a worker’s sick child but disregards the fears of those fleeing her plantation. Equally revealing is her willingness to let her employees stay in unpardonable living quarters.

Maria’s dismissal of the concerns of others, particularly those of her ex-husband, André (Christopher Lambert), and refusal to acknowledge the dangers encircling her adolescent son, Manuel (Nicolas Duvauchelle), may strike the viewer as unrealistic. This capacity for denial is improbable but may also mask a racist assumption: namely, the belief that her white skin will protect her. The viewer is encouraged to read Maria’s commitment as a white fantasy of belonging and possession. This post-colonial white woman may have had a romantic relationship with the local mayor, and may be contemptuous of other whites, but her mindset is considerably colonial. Note that Denis does not judge her central character in an obvious way. Her approach is to observe rather than condemn. It is up to the individual viewer to interpret Maria.

The film is primarily about the position of white people in Africa. The expression “white material” refers both to white people and their possessions. It is wittily employed by the local radio DJ who provides sharp political comment on the conflict: “As for the white material, the party’s over. No more cocktails on shaded verandahs while we sweat water and blood. They’re deserting. They’re right to run scared.” Although Maria’s extraordinary energy and audacity are constantly highlighted, Denis appears to underline that her very presence on African soil is incongruous. This is accentuated by the striking image of her pale-skinned, red-haired character standing, all by herself, on a dirt road in a pale pink dress. Maria is presented as an idiosyncratic anachronism. As it did for the European colonial male in the past, Africa, for Maria, represents opportunity and romantic self-realization. She asks the Boxer, a wounded rebel leader holding up on the land (Isaach de Bankolé), “How could I show courage in France? It would be absurd…I’d slack off, get too comfortable.” Interestingly, it is the Frenchmen of White Material who embody white European decline. Her ex-husband is in debt to the mayor, Cherif, her father-in-law (Michel Subor) aged and ailing, and her son slothful and unstable. Degraded by child soldiers, the latter self-destructs in disturbing ways.

It is to both the child soldiers of the land–“the fearless young rascals”–and Marie that Denis dedicates her film. The former are portrayed as children. We see them play with toys in Maria’s home and we also see their throats slashed by government forces as they bathe and sleep. Although Maria’s commitment to the soil is emphasized, the director’s sympathies rest with the orphaned child soldiers. Their tragic fate is portrayed in an unsettling, heart-breaking manner.

The representation of African political unrest in White Material is troubling, however. The country in question is never named and nor is the viewer given a background to the war. This universalizes the African conflict experience and, unhelpfully, portrays the continent’s wars as incomprehensible, colossal nightmares. The filmmaker’s impressionistic, elliptical approach is problematic too. Africa still needs to be demystified in the Western popular imagination. The continent’s diversity is extraordinary–as the writer and filmmaker undoubtedly know–and, as any thoughtful student of modern African history knows, its wars are invariably politically engineered and highly calculated and organized.

The narrative approach of White Material also serves to generalize the contemporary European expatriate white experience in post-colonial Africa. It may seem obvious but the global audience needs to be reminded that there are many different kinds of expatriates across the continent–of all races and socio-economic backgrounds–as well as white expatriates–and citizens–who are not colonial in their mentality. White Material is specifically about privileged white people who still farm African land in a post-colonial French-speaking country. Further, one may question whether a family so singular can represent the French post-colonial mindset. Manuel’s fate is, to be honest, quite bizarre. The apocalyptic resolution befits a classical tragedy but it is frankly absurd. If it is meant as a searing condemnation of the colonial mentality–and I hope and trust it is- the message is lost in all the strangeness.

Razor-sharp remarks about European exploitation of black Africans ring true in White Material. The DJ mocks those “who rip us off and use our land to grow mediocre coffee that we’d never drink.” However, both the script and story lack clarity. What to make of Cherif’s remarks about Maria’s son, Manuel? He observes: “Extreme blondness brings bad luck. It cries out to be pillaged. Blue eyes are troublesome. This is his country. He was born here. But it doesn’t like him.” The remarks are striking but somewhat cryptic. They have political intent and resonance in the sense that they force Maria to confront her whiteness. She is reminded that her ancestors were not African. These somewhat obscure words also appear to indicate a belief that whiteness is somewhat demonized in the popular black African imagination. This is worrying as they arguably serve to reinforce Western associations of Africa with superstition. The character of the rebel leader, the Boxer, is, equally, opaque. Before finding refuge, The Boxer roams the scarred land on an abandoned horse like a kind of phantom. Suffering a stomach wound, he also appears to symbolize African stoicism. The portrait is, therefore, a somewhat mythic one.

White Material thankfully lacks the exoticism of Hollywood films about Africa. This is unsurprising, of course, considering the filmmaker’s background. Nor does it adopt a didactic approach. Although not without interesting ideas and striking images, it ultimately, though, does not provide great insight into African politics or conflict. Due perhaps to its obliqueness and opaqueness, White Material is neither sufficiently stirring nor powerful. It is an interesting rather than impressive work by the veteran director. What is unusual about White Material, however, is that it has a single-minded, risk-taking, ideologically dubious, deeply flawed complex female character at its center. What’s more, it elicits important discussions about white European femininity and entitlement.

A Role of Her Own: A Celebration of Satyajit Ray’s ‘The Big City’

Arati is, in fact, a great screen heroine. She is elegant, giving, gritty and spirited. Committed to supporting others, she has a strong personal and public moral code. She cares for both her loved ones and her fellow female co-workers. She buys presents for every member of the family when she gets her first salary and, although he has hurt her, she does not hesitate to praise her failing husband when she is with others. At work, Arati is not frightened of asking her boss for a raise and she learns to bargain with her colleagues for extra commission pay. When Edith’s virtue is slighted at work (the boss believes Anglo-Indians to be inherently promiscuous), she speaks out against the injustice and makes an extraordinarily risky yet heroic move. It is important to note that Arati is not regressively presented as a maternal martyr but as a dynamic, engaged worker and citizen.

Written by Rachael Johnson.

For most lovers, and scholars of ‘World Cinema’, the great Indian director Satyajit Ray will be forever identified with the Apu Trilogy. Chronically the coming of age of a young Bengali boy in the early part of the last century, the critically-acclaimed Pather Panchali (1955), Aparajito (1956) and Apur Sansar (1959) still feature in highly regarded Greatest Films of All Time lists. While they remain prized, influential films, 2013 has given us the opportunity to look at other great works by Ray. Re-released by the British Film Institute to celebrate its 50^th anniversary, Mahanagar (The Big City) is one that particularly caught my eye. It proved a pretty special discovery.

Set in 1950s Kolkata, The Big City is an intimate, insightful examination of the role of women in post-Independence India. The heroine of the tale is Arati Mazumdar (Madhabi Mukherjee), a lovely, kind-hearted housewife who lives with her bank clerk husband, Subrata (Anil Chatterjee), and their small son Pintu. They share their modest, lower middle-class home with Subrata’s elderly parents and teenage sister. As he is finding it hard to make ends meet, it is decided that Arati should also help support the family. She procures a job as a door-to-door saleswoman. Initially fearful of stepping out into the city streets, Arati soon adapts to the world of work. Gaining confidence and customers, she displays a considerable talent for the business. She meets people outside her family for the first time and strikes up a friendship with a stylish Anglo-Indian colleague called Edith (Vicki Redwood) who introduces her to lipstick.

But all is not well at home. Horrified by the very idea of his daughter-in-law working, Subrata’s deeply conservative father, Priyagopal (Haren Chatterjee), cold-shoulders the couple. The retired school teacher is particularly ashamed of his son. He believes that he has failed as a husband and that a woman who works suffers great hardship. Interestingly, he feels no shame in asking his former pupils for financial help. Subrata embodies urban post-colonial India and comes across as a quite genial and relatively modern husband. There are nicely-observed scenes at the beginning of the film where he shows engaging support for his wife who is naturally nervous at entering the workforce for the first time. He defends their decision to his father. ‘Change comes because it’s necessary,’ he says. However, Subrata too becomes increasingly threatened by Arati’s new role. She is forced to mollify his masculinist sense of worth. ‘I’m still the same. Just a housewife,’ she says. But he still tells her to quit her job. It is a cruel demand as it shows that Subrata does not care about Arati’s personal happiness and sense of self-worth. It also demonstrates a lack of logic and imagination. The request is all the more discouraging because he is a customarily gentle, likeable man. The Big City is not a polemic and Ray does not express an openly judgmental attitude towards his male characters. The film does, however, indicate that their narrow-mindedness is irrational and self-defeating. The director shows, through the illustration of a potentially disastrous life-changing event, that such reactionary, patriarchal attitudes are dangerous to the survival of both men and women. Unchanging concepts of gender serve neither the family nor community. Ray is, therefore, interested, in both the consequences of women’s participation in the workforce for both the individual and her society.

Ray wonderfully shows what work and economic independence mean for Arati personally. His portrayal of her struggle and advancement is both tender and progressive. Ray’s heroine is both good at her job and fulfilled by her work. It energizes her. ‘I work all day, and yet I don’t feel tired,’ she tells Subrata. There are many beautifully-observed moments in the movie but one scene in particular captures Arati’s own feelings towards her emerging role and independence. When she receives her first pay packet at work, she goes into the bathroom and opens the envelope to examine the pristine notes. In front of the mirror, she holds them to her chest and then smells them. She is pensive, a little bemused, and simply, understandably, proud of her success. At home, she tells her husband, ‘If you saw me at work, you wouldn’t recognize me.’ She is, of course, deeply hurt when Subrata asks her to give up her job. Ray addresses social change in humorous ways too. In one amusing scene, a stunned Subrata, having tea in a café, watches Arati, in black shades, cross the busy street outside. She runs into the husband of a friend and accompanies him into the café. It is an entirely innocent meeting but Subrata listens to their conversation behind a newspaper. Arati has two selves for two worlds. At home, she hides the lipstick she wears in the big city. These tensions are handled with delicacy and wit. Thanks to the well-drawn characterization and Mukherjee’s fully-realized performance, Arati’s growth always strikes the viewer as believable. Her spark is actually evident from the very beginning of the story when she wakes Subrata up in the middle of night to tell him, ‘I’m going to work.’

Arati (Madhabi Mukherjee) and husband Subrata (Anil Chatterjee)

While it is a tale filmed in black and white, and rooted in particular time and place, The Big City has immeasurable universal appeal and contemporary significance. Although it is not without melodramatic elements, it tells a very human story with both wit and kindness. It has a progressive sensibility and great heart. A sensitive study of a woman’s personal awakening and growth, it also understands that the personal is deeply political. The Big City has a wonderful heroine and a memorable central performance. Mukherjee’s turn as the strong, gracious Arati is quite mesmerizing. Newly restored, it is, in addition, gorgeous to look at. Now part of the Criterion Collection, The Big City is not difficult to track down. It is a beautiful film and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

‘Thérèse’ Explores Twentieth Century Marriage Convictions and the Sexual Paths Of Two Women

Thérèse film poster.

Written by Janyce Denise Glasper

The 2012 film Thérèse touches on the aftereffects of burgeoning sexuality between two women–Thérèse and her sister-in-law, Anne–and focuses on a companionship that was formed when they were young girls.

“Have you thought about it?” Anne asks.

“You mean sleeping with your brother every night?” Thérèse asks back.

“Yes? Doesn’t it scare you?”

“No, I never think about it.”

“You’re lying!”

“No, I swear. Never.”

In this particular scene, the night before the big wedding between two adjoining pinery owners, Anne speaks of sexual intercourse with the vivid curiosity of a lively young woman. Her widened bright eyes and excited mouth speak candidly about scandalous romantic stories and masturbation–the latter a taboo topic among women of twentieth century France. Thérèse sees it nothing more than another trivial duty, another part of a rich union. Cigarette smoking, free thinking Thérèse appears bored with the overall thought, expressing little emotion, little joy. In terms of love, Thérèse affectionately nicknames Anne her “little girlfriend” and the soft, intimately close soon-to-be sisters clasp hands and sleep together–a picture of a long-time bond.

It was always three’s company between Thérèse (Audrey Tautou, center) and the Desqueyroux siblings, Anne (Anaïs Demoustier, right) and Bernard (Gilles Lellouche).

After the quiet wedding, the marriage bed occurs and Thérèse does not relish the occurrence or find satisfaction. When Bernard is lying atop of her still body, he grunts loud and moves awkwardly, selfish in his lovemaking skills. He is all about himself. No affection. No lingering touches that instill ardor. Cold, stoic Thérèse floats inside of an impermeable bubble, mouth closed, blank opened black eyes voided, arms lying limply on his back. She is as rigid as society conviction. Sex is a tedious obligation, not a pleasure.

This disheartening emotional prison that Thérèse is sequestered inside isn’t the kind that’s listed on the New York Times Bestseller List by historical romance novel writers who pen independent women seeking pleasure by graciously giving lovers. Thérèse’s privileged life has become the source of grave unhappiness, of silent depression. Her marriage isn’t a quintessential novel. It’s mundane and slowly killing her, especially with Bernard caring far more for the baby growing inside than Thérèse.

Thérèse (Audrey Tautou) enjoying one of Anne’s letters.

However, Anne’s sensually fluffed letters stimulate Thérèse’s duress. Anne has fallen in love with a roguish man named Jean that incites her vivacious spirit and electrifies naïve frustrations brewing between girlhood and fantasy. Her luscious words bring fruitful splendor to Thérèse, a vicarious longing that also inadvertently fuels Thérèse’s great jealousy. In Bernard, she feels no spark, no fire. In such a strict upper crust rule where women must obey husbands and yield to their every command, Thérèse has ultimately denied wanting those kinds of desires, growing up motherless and shadowing her father’s character, bearing perfect picture of the sophisticated society wife. Anne overtly shares captivating joy of having a man titillate ripening womanhood and this wicked experience is unknown to Thérèse, who greedily reads these letters in private vein, visibly shaken by the depth of Anne’s growing fulfillment.

Thérèse takes part in Anne’s family double crossed meddling, vowing to keep Anne away from her aching desire to marry a Jew. It’s unbearable seeing Anne break and shatter, like fragmented glass breaking in these tormented scenes. She is a pitiable wreck, refusing to eat, her disposition waning to a waxen pallor of imminent heartbreak. When Bernard’s dogs viciously attack her and he does the same straight after, the scene showcases a terrifying parallel between certain men and ferocious animals. Bernard may be gentle at times, but he has a violent side as beastly as a dog’s bite and treats his sister with cruel disdain. And as it turns out, Anne’s beau is too good to be true as well. Jean turns out to be a ruthless cad, a real asshole. This surprises Thérèse. He tells Thérèse in boastful fashion that he never has had an intention of marrying Anne or acquiring the deep tender feelings foolish Anne had so generously penned:

“Anne certainly has shared her life’s passions with me. You know what I’m talking about… the life that awaits her. The life that awaits all women around here. A bleak, provincial life. Proper, conventional, and rigid.”

Should Anne’s desires have remained dormant? Untapped? Are we to bow down to Jean and thank him, though prior he also asks, “Is it forbidden to play for a bit?”

My need to punch Jean became stronger as he continued talking. It didn’t matter what books he read or how intelligent he appeared to Thérèse, who eventually secretly writes to him throughout the film. The fact remains that he intentionally took advantage of Anne’s innocence, sullied her world, and played her like a damned toy. It begins to become hard to choose a side. Do viewers side with Anne’s family who bar and treat her like an asylum patient? Yes, they have valid reasons. Yet it’s sickening how women are not allowed to have the same sexual freedom as men and that if they showcase signs of this, they are relegated to being treated like they have mental incapacity. Sexual feelings and thoughts are wrong. They must be shut out. Even today, women who showcase sexual liberation are labeled horrifically. The other presented question is do we congratulate Jean who stirred a passion that burned so brightly inside Anne? Do we say, hurray to the man who made Anne his intended victim–his target for foreplay? Either way the choices are unfair to Anne. They are for Thérèse, too. They both have to conform to tradition- ignore natural bodily desires and submit to marriage, to a man of family choosing.

Thérèse (Audrey Tautou) often is lost in thought and women in her time were not allowed to think.

The second shown sex scene between Thérèse and Bernard is a disturbing, grossly violent act, occurring some time after the birth of the couple’s daughter. It shows Bernard being further self-seeking and rough. Thérèse has swatted her hand, but he is forceful and initiates a randy monstrous shallowness. She looks perplexed by this turn of events. Now Thérèse does have a friendship with him, a certain kindhearted camaraderie. In certain scenes he is more like a brother than a husband. Yet in this one horrid night, Bernard demonstrates his power and Thérèse has no choice but to succumb to him and her growing downfall to ruin by trying to kill him.

Anne’s fate is adjacent to Thérèse’s. After being mentally and physically imprisoned by her family, Anne’s awakened passions are replaced by civil, respectable duty. Completely subdued and complacent, Anne prepares to marry a kind, dull gentleman that family prefers. The life which has scarred Thérèse will be Anne’s. She has lost whimsical magic and charm. Her eyes are no longer merry and twinkling. Her smiles have lessened. She and Thérèse have both become muted in the course of the film.

Thérèse’s final scene with Anne is a sad one as well. It is apparent that they’ll probably never cross paths again. No more holding hands and sharing secrets. The past of two carefree girls has passed. They are fragmented shells that have dealt with family rejection, male dominance, and having sexual beliefs turned eschew. One cannot help but mourn the loss of their spirited personalities.

Thérèse (Audrey Tautou) and Bernard (Gilles Lellouche) in happier times.

Bernard does give Thérèse the keys to her freedom. He aches as he sees her literally dying before his eyes. Thérèse has lost so much, including rights to see her own child, but by the end, she gains something unexpected.

She has liberty.

Unfortunately, not many women can say the same.

‘In the House’: Promising Female Characters Disappoint


In the House movie poster

Written by Amanda Rodiguez

Spoiler Alert

Francois Ozon’s In the House (or Dans la Maison) is actually quite good. It’s an intelligent film with brilliantly portrayed, complex, interesting characters along with pathos and moments of poignant humor. The film is very aware of social class dynamics, showing the interplay of working class, middle class, and the intelligentsia. Germain is a jaded teacher who sees the writing talent in his student Claude, a smart, working class kid with a sadistic streak. As Germain nurtures Claude’s “gift,” both their lives spiral out of control. Using an engaging meta-narrative to show the story-within-the-story through its chapters and revisions as Claude integrates Germain’s instruction, Germain becomes obsessed with his student and the story he writes. We begin to wonder about the potential maliciousness of Claude’s manipulations, not only of the family “in the house,” but of Germain himself. Who is really the teacher and who is the pupil? Where is the line between fantasy and reality?

Though I enjoyed the smart plot and fine performances, I found myself on the fence about the female characterizations. First, there’s Esther (played by Emmanuelle Seigner), the matriarch of the Artole family.

Esther sleeps while Claude voyeuristically writes about her feet. Women, he finds, are easier to admire when they’re asleep and can’t challenge him or make him feel inadequate.

Claude is sexually attracted to her, longs for her as a replacement for the mother who left him, and resents and envies her for her class status. Claude mocks her as stupid, painting her in his narrative as coarse and frivolous. Germain isn’t too concerned with the lack of sophistication Claude’s writing exhibits as it turns Esther into little more than an object of desire (albeit the desire itself is rendered as complex and multifaceted). Germain, instead, insists that the key to the story is the fleshing out of the young Rapha character.

Claude derides and inwardly sneers at Esther for her obsession with the house. She constantly flits through home magazines and goes on about the drapes and building a veranda. Esther’s identity is reduced to the house. Claude never really sees or appreciates her loneliness and the deep, abiding unhappiness in the objective correlative of the house.

Esther folding laundry, noticing Claude staring at her from a park bench.

Claude never realizes that the house is every bit as much a symbol for him as it is for her, though the permutation is different for each of them. For Claude, the house is an escape into another, better life with inhabitants who he’s free to toy with and manipulate to manifest his own desires. For Esther, it is a prison and a life preserver that she continues to beautify in the hopes that she won’t have to keep staring at the bars. Not only that, but Claude never recognizes that Esther is the keeper of this house that he desires so much; she is the one who lovingly cares for its physicality while internally sacrificing much to keep its inhabitants happy and together (even, in the end, giving up the house itself so that her husband can follow his dreams).

Then we have Jeanne (played by Kristin Scott Thomas), Gillam’s intelligent, insightful wife who operates an art gallery.

Jeanne sits in bed contemplating the tale Claude weaves as well as the nature of the weaver himself.

Germain shares young Claude’s chapters with Jeanne, and while Germain becomes engrossed in the boy’s story and writing talent, Jeanne constantly reminds us to think of the troubled boy crafting the tale. Jeanne also observes the way this obsession is affecting Germain, the only one outside the story enough to keep bringing reality back into play. She cites Germain’s loss of sexual appetite, postulating that he may be attracted to his student; Germain’s prioritizing Claude’s writing over the desperate situation at her art gallery where her job is in jeopardy; and Germain’s losing his moral compass as he helps Claude and Rapha cheat in order to keep Claude within the house and writing. She is the one who breaks the fourth wall by inviting the Artole’s to an art opening at her gallery.

Germain is horrified that Jeanne has invited the Artoles, as he’d prefer to imagine them as fictitious.

To Claude, Germain mocks the art Jeanne curates as pretentious. Germain is threatened by her intelligence and effortless insight into the human psyche as proven by her astute grasp of Claude and the characters he portrays. Claude ends up weaving Jeanne into his narrative, ending their encounter with sex, a scene that is dubious in its veracity. This non-consensual representation is a violation of her personhood. Her agency disappears with her as we never find out what becomes of her after Germain murderously chokes her after reading Claude’s rendering of his meeting with Jeanne. Germain’s vicious attack is borderline absurdist in its ferocity, and I was left wondering if the scene was intended to be humorous … I assure you, it was not. Germain’s assault seems more about the loss of another thing that belonged to him (his wife is to his job is to his reputation) due to Claude’s story as well as his own obsession.

Not only does Germain become completely unsympathetic to me in that moment, but the female characters are revealed to be little more than narrative devices. The ending of In the House makes it clear that the film was always and only about the relationship between Germain and Claude. As the two sit together on a bench bereft of everything but each other’s company and their stories, it becomes clear that the narrative was always about the power play between instructor and pupil. Other people were merely obstacles that stood between them to be maneuvered like chess pieces until these two men were on equal footing, a sort of stalemate with only the kings left standing on the board.

At first, I hoped the film was calling attention to the way that both Germain and Claude don’t really see the women in their lives, don’t allow them to be full human beings, but upon further analysis, it becomes apparent that the film itself only uses the female characters as convenient props to help elucidate the male narrative replete with its masculine struggles.

Andrée Inspires Father And Son In ‘Renoir’

Poster for French film, Renoir.

Written by Janyce Denise Glasper

Gilles Bourdos’ Renoir is a feast for an art appreciator’s enjoyment, opening on lush, brilliant cinematography and a flaming red-haired woman riding a vintage bicycle dressed in vivid orange coat, brown kid gloves, and rounded sunglasses.

This is Andrée Heuschling bringing forth a brazen, illustrious spirit to a real life triad.

More than young, ripened flesh for master French Impressionist painter, Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s eyes, Andrée amuses and delights both him and his son, future filmmaker Jean Renoir.

Set five years before his death, aging painfully with arthritis overwhelming old hands and body confined to a wheelchair, Pierre still finds pleasure in painting and undergoes wince-filled treatments just to sit at his beloved easel. He is surrounded by former models and lovers who proudly cater to his every whim–giving him baths, mixing paints, etc.

Andrée (Christa Theret) poses for Pierre-Auguste Renoir (Michel Bouquet).

Andrée doesn’t long for that servitude.

She arrives at Renoir’s door solely wanting to model.

Lithe and graceful, laying smooth alabaster skin among colored textile chaises inside cluttered studio or among outdoor grasses on blankets, Andrée courts Pierre’s every instruction and lavishes attentiveness in natural, beguiling light. As his gnarled, knobby hands sketch rounded figure, pencils lingering on back as though touching with fingers instead of eyes, she chatters away animatedly and is unabashed about nudity. She sees posing for art as a job and has no interest in becoming domesticated.

Jean returns from war, injured and limping.

Immediately, the quiet young man is enchanted by Andrée’s personality. She gets him to escape out of his comfort zone, and the two fall into a serene kind of love that is soft and at times erotically charged without overtly sensual love scenes. In one surprising act, the two are in bed, and she puts lipstick on his lips and kisses him passionately, redness coating her mouth upon exchange.

Although nude and unapologetic, seen visually as a still life to wrinkled, nearly dying Pierre, Andrée’s relationship with Jean is much more intimate and private, an exchanging of tranquil stares and gentle touching that occurs away from the eyes of the household.

Andrée (Christa Theret) finds love in Jean Renoir. (Vincent Rottiers)

One short, small scene did incite a furious spark.

Studio doors are opened and inviting while Andrée sleeps without a trace of Pierre. Fabric leaves bared breasts and rounded up thrust waist vulnerable to anyone’s gaze. In steps the younger, darkly disturbed son–Pierre the junior, circles Andrée with predatory sharpness. He then takes a bowl of blue pigment, hovers close, and blows wisps of it onto her skin.

Whether it happened to be a dream or bumpy reality, this moment disturbed the order of things in Andrée’s carefree, liberated world, and it wasn’t even addressed. Pierre the younger certainly gave off a terribly sinister vibe that he would inflict harm unbeknownst to anyone and ignited an ire as if troubling behavior spoke of eventual abuse toward women.

Christa Theret captures a natural human richness into Andrée. With raspy voice and expressive blue eyes, she offers breadth into a brazen, outspoken character at a time where domesticity still placed women inside a box. To Pierre, she is a motherly comrade, cradling cheek and expressing gratitude to elder patron, but to Jean, she provides him keys necessary to unlock sensitive shell and incites an awakened passion to make film. Andrée knows that she is beautiful, but is also commanding, brave, and intelligent, valuing only for respect, decency, and to break the mold of her sensitively depicted gender.

Andrée (Christa Theret) in most scenes is shown as a piece of art.

However, picturesque Renoir suffers from too much opulence and grandeur, focusing too heavily on Andrée’s lusty body and lovely scenery that purposefully mimics Renoir’s infamously luminous compositions. But that’s supposedly Impressionism’s meaning–all the colors without a paintbrush dipping into black.

Andrée simply stimulated the Renoir men’s taste for sensual inspiration and artistic expression–a muse catering toward creative distraction.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

Travel Films Week: "It Seems to Me That She Came From the Sea": A Review of Agnes Varda’s ‘Vagabond’

Agnès Varda directs Vagabond

This is a guest review by Rachael Johnson.

Vagabond is one of Agnès Varda’s finest films. First released in 1985, its title in French is Sans Toit Ni Loi–Without Roof or Law or Homeless and Lawless. It is the story of Mona, a young homeless woman roaming the landscape of a French wine-growing region in deepest winter. Lined with a feminist sensibility, Vagabond is both naturalistic and formally remarkable. Filmed in a realistic, pseudo-documentary style, it is structurally ambitious and bleakly poetic. Varda, interestingly, dedicates her film to Natalie Sarraute, one of the key writers of the Nouveau Roman (New Novel), the French literary movement that challenged post-war narrative conventions. Vagabond also features a compelling central performance by Sandrine Bonnaire. The actress, unsurprisingly, won a César (French Oscar) for her courageous turn as Mona. The film itself won the Golden Lion at the 1985 Venice Film Festival.

We begin at the end with the discovery of Mona’s corpse in a ditch. The young vagabond, it seems clear, froze to death. Through interviews with the people she met on the road as well as flashbacks, Vagabond explores the riddle of Mona. The young woman, it soon becomes apparent, is a complex, contradictory figure. Although spunky and independent, she can be curiously passive and sluggish. She does not care what others think of her but is defensive when challenged. She can also be as stubborn and sullen as a small child. Mona’s grit and sass are evident in the opening flashbacks when we see her flipping off a truck driver. There is, equally, a sensuality and earthiness to the young woman. We see her first–in long shot–emerging naked from the sea. The unseen interviewer (Varda herself) narrates in voice-over: “It seems to me that she came from the sea.”

Sandrine Bonnaire as Mona Bergeron in Vagabond

The director’s feminist aesthetics are apparent in the framing of these early flashbacks. As Mona emerges from the sea, the viewer sees that she is being watched by two young men. Varda’s shot of the naked Mona is succeeded by a shot of postcards of naked women for sale in a bar frequented by the same young men. Disturbingly, they talk of missed opportunities. Varda depicts the sexual objectification and exploitation of Mona in a quite unobtrusive, subtle fashion. Many of the male characters reveal their misogyny themselves in interviews. A garage owner who exploits Mona has the audacity to say female drifters are “always after men.”

Many of the women Mona meets seem to understand and appreciate her more. A few even envy her mobility and freedom. A teenager longingly observes, “She was free; she goes where she likes.” Another much older woman admires her character: “She knows what she wants.” Amusingly, she tells her husband that she would have been better off if she had kicked him out at Mona’s age. The charged, poignant comments suggest deep female dissatisfaction with the domestic space.

Mona can be a subversive, liberating force. There is a wonderful scene where she gets drunk on brandy with a wealthy, old lady. The old woman revels in Mona’s anarchic spirit and the mischief of the moment. She knows her nephew wants her money and home and Mona helps her cut through the bullshit of bourgeois propriety and hypocrisy. Amusingly, the young vagabond has been squatting in an abandoned wing of the woman’s château with a young man she has picked up. Mona is also–at first at least–a romantic figure to the old woman’s nurse. A dreamy woman disappointed in love, she is fascinated by Mona’s relationship with the young man. The lovers eat from cans in candlelight, drink wine, smoke pot and listen to music. We see them–in a fine tracking shot–wander the grounds of the property wrapped in blankets. Mona does not, however, play the conventional romantic role for long. An autonomous, capricious spirit, she abandons young male lovers and companions when she feels the need or inclination.

Mona drinks with a wealthy older woman

The young vagabond is a complicated, ambiguous character. She is prepared to play the dependent, happy to take, and willing to steal. She hooks up with a sweet Tunisian vine-cutter who provides shelter and promises to provide. When he is forced to choose his job and co-workers over her, she is bitterly wounded. She is offered a role and place to stay by a goat farmer but chooses to do very little. She expresses interest in growing potatoes but does not take up the man’s offer of help. She even steals from his wife. The goat farmer, a university graduate, is repelled by Mona’s aimlessness and lack of work ethic. Calling Mona “a dreamer,” he tells her of friends who have been destroyed and taken by life on the road. Mona, it is true, has no plan or ideology. She is not on a journey of spiritual or intellectual enlightenment. She does not want to remake her world. Mona, for her part, defiantly asks why a highly-educated man would herd goats for a living. The suggestion is that the farmer is himself somewhat of a dreamer and even guilty of middle-class self-indulgence. It is never fully clear what drove Mona to choose the road, but we learn that she hated her secretarial job and “jumped-up bosses.” She no longer wants to play the game. When a female agronomist she meets asks Mona why she dropped out, she answers: “Champagne on the road’s better.” Does she believe herself? The factor of class is alluded to but not underscored in Vagabond. Mona quietly observes, “There are so many big houses, so many rooms.” But we know little of her background and education.

The agronomist is intrigued and troubled by the young woman’s way of life. She offers Mona food, champagne, and temporary shelter in her car. The middle-aged woman plays a sisterly-maternal part and expresses deep concern about the dangers that may befall Mona when she finally parts ways with her. They are realised. Mona’s journey takes a tragic turn when she is raped in the woods. Varda, notably, pulls her camera away from the horror. Mona’s life gradually begins to unravel. Although she gains a new set of (delinquent) companions, she becomes increasingly unmoored and scarred by her state. We see her vomiting at a bus station, bombed out of her mind, and we see her, finally, break down and cry. The cold will soon take her.

Sandrine Bonnaire in Vagabond

Vagabond is an unsentimental study of the road and Mona is not drawn as particularly sweet or predictably heroic. The film does not address gender politics in direct, didactic fashion. Varda’s feminist sensibility and aesthetics are, however, evident throughout. The veteran director never sexually objectifies her female protagonist, and her portrait of Mona is complex, humane, and provocative. The young woman is, in many ways, a truly transgressive figure. Her vagabond state represents an absolute rejection of the comforts, confines, and conventions of domesticity. Although young and attractive, Mona refuses cultural norms of feminine beauty. Mona’s filthiness is, pointedly, the subject of incessant comment throughout Vagabond. With these repeated references, Varda alludes to the deep-rooted misogynist cultural belief that an unclean woman is nothing less than a monstrous aberration. A male student of the agronomist declares, “She’s revolting, a wreck. Makes me sick…She scares me because she revolts me.”

Mona intrigues, unsettles, and repels the people she meets. Vulnerable, variable, tough, apathetic, hedonistic, wayward, and free, she cannot be pinned down and defined. If Vagabond sounds like too grim a journey, it is not. It is an absorbing, at once harsh and beautiful tale about an enigmatic girl who wandered in winter.

Rachael Johnson has contributed articles on film to CINEACTION, www.objectif-cinema.com, and www.jgcinema.com.

‘Yerma’: The Pain, Heartbreak and Destruction of Infertility and Patriarchy

Movie poster for Yerma

Written by Leigh Kolb for our theme week on Infertility, Miscarriage, and Infant Loss.

My womb is opening / without fear or dread /
and on white sheets / I sketch my dream.

Let us sing / let us sing / let us sing.

For life is woven in the early morn,

For the silvery moon an infant will bring.

In 1934, Spanish writer Federico García Lorca wrote the play Yerma, and it has been performed regularly since its opening that year. In 1999, a Spanish film was released, directed by Pilar Távora.

English translation of the play, which the film closely follows.

Yerma, the title character, has been married to Juan for two years and she has not been able to get pregnant. (Yerma means “barren” in Spanish.) As the film opens to folk songs with poetic lyrics that weave throughout the entire film, Yerma is taking care of him, trying to get him to drink milk and exercise more. It’s clear his work drives him–he works hard, and is tenacious in his work in the field, but not in love.

Juan and Yerma appear happy on their wedding night

Yerma seems to just be starting to devolve into an incredibly unhappy mental and emotional place in regard to their inability to conceive.

Her friend Maria visits, and she’s brought lace, ribbon and fabric. “It’s happened!” she says, and Yerma is excited for Maria’s pregnancy, asking her how she feels, and giving her loving advice. Yerma seems to have a deep understanding of pregnancy and motherhood, and displays wisdom with Maria.

Maria asks about the fact that Yerma has no children, but assures her that she’s had friends who took longer to conceive. “Two years and 20 days is too long,” asserts Yerma. “It isn’t fair that I’m wasting away here.”

Before she leaves, Maria pulls out her new fabric and lace and asks Yerma to sew little dresses for her, since she “sews so well.” Yerma graciously complies.

Yerma has tried for years to become pregnant, and her friend announces she’s gotten pregnant after just a few months of marriage.

The first scenes are familiar ones to infertile women–trying to watch after the health of her partner, tension over the desire to conceive, a friend getting pregnant after just a few months and the pain of knowing more about pregnancy than the pregnant friend herself.

Sorrow wide as a field / a door closed on beauty

I beg the suffering of a child

But the wind gives me dahlias / from under the sleeping moon

Sorrow wide as a field / I beg the suffering of a child

As time passes, it becomes clearer that Yerma’s marriage is an unhappy one. Her father arranged her marriage to Juan, but her true match seems to be Victor (who Juan runs off after he’s concerned that he and Yerma have been speaking too much). Indeed, Juan doesn’t even like Yerma going outside of the home at all.

Yerma meets an old woman on the path to the field, and she clings to her, begging her to answer questions about her childlessness since she assumes an older woman would have wisdom. Yerma says she’s been thinking about children since the moment she was engaged. “I was just the opposite,” the old woman says. “Maybe you’re thinking too much.”

Yerma says she still remains empty, but she’s “filling up with hate.”

The old woman alludes to the fact that God has no part in this, and if there was one, there should be a god who “sends lightning bolts to men with spoiled seed.” This is the first real indication that perhaps Juan is the problem (the old woman tells Yerma later that it is Juan, and he’s from a long line of men with the same problem).

Yerma goes back home and meets other women on the road who are hurrying to take their husbands lunch. One left her baby home alone, and the other talks about adamantly not wanting children and being bitter about spending her whole life cooking and washing–things that she doesn’t want to do. Yerma reacts harshly to the young mother who’s left her child at home, again reinforcing that sadness in infertile women of seeing others take parenting for granted.

Yerma changes after these encounters–Juan’s coldness and lack of desire for her or for children has become clearer to her, and the older woman’s warnings and sharp words start sinking in. When we see her again, she’s rocking back and forth in the dark, while we hear women gossip about her.

It’s a pity of the childless wife / It’s a pity of the woman whose breasts are dry

Time has passed, and a group of women is doing laundry and talking about Yerma.

“They don’t like to make lace or jam,” one woman says about barren women. “They like walking barefoot on the river.”

“It isn’t her fault she doesn’t have children,” her friend interjects.

“Whoever wants children has them,” another says.

“It’s all his fault.”

“It’s all her fault.”

The women have largely turned against Yerma as she has turned inward and become increasingly full of grief over her desire to and inability to conceive.

She and Juan lash out at one another. He says, “You keep beating your head against a wall. I feel uneasy living with you, anxious. You have to resign yourself.”

She responds, “I want to drink water, and there’s no glade and no water. I want to climb a mountain and I’ve got no feet. I want to trim my petticoats and I can’t find the thread.”

Yerma’s words about the deep, miserable feelings surrounding infertility are poignant and heartbreakingly accurate. While much is going on in this film worth discussing–the patriarchal culture that arranges marriages and ties a woman’s worth solely to her ability to have children, obviously, and the immediate blame of the woman when a couple can’t conceive–Yerma’s struggle with infertility is one of the most accurate portrayals of that grief that I’ve ever seen.

Yerma slips deeper into an obsessive depression as time goes on.

Yerma sees Maria walking quickly by her house, and asks her to stop. She wonders why she’s rushing by and Maria says, “Because you always cry.” Yerma holds the baby and kisses it.

“Women who’ve had children cannot imagine not having them,” she says. “My longing grows stronger and my hopes are fading.”

Yerma visits a group of older women who chant over her, praying to Sainte Anne, performing a ceremony in the cemetery in the middle of the night. Afterward, the older women gently criticize Yerma for “fretting” too much about not having a child and not taking shelter in her husband’s love. Yerma becomes defiant, and finally exclaims that she doesn’t love him. “But he’s my only hope,” she says. “For my honor and my family. My only hope.”

She seems relieved. “I needed to talk,” she tells the women. The female conversations in the film are both destructive and nourishing, but they are clearly good for Yerma when she is able to be a part of them.

Yerma continues to decline, though. Juan finally confronts her and tells her that he doesn’t like the idea, but he’s willing to take her himself to a pilgrimage where childless women go to be blessed with children.

At the ceremony, the old woman finds Yerma and tells her she should leave Juan and marry her son, instead, who could give her children. “What about my honor?” Yerma says, and tells her to go away. Yerma’s inability to conceive and her miserable marriage seem to fall squarely on the shoulders of Juan, but she cannot escape due to the strict morality of her culture.

“My pain has gone far beyond my body,” Yerma says.

The old woman calls her barren and Yerma repeats the word. “Since I’ve been married that word has been going around in my head,” she says, but “this is the first time I’ve said it out loud.”

Yerma runs through the woods and settles at her campsite, where Juan is drinking. She tells him to leave her alone, but he says he wants to speak.

“I won’t put up any longer for continual lament for things that aren’t real,” he says. “For things that haven’t happened, and that we can’t control. For things I don’t care about. I care about what I have in my hands.”

She says that’s what she’s been waiting to hear: that he doesn’t care.

Yerma speaks of a son, and says, “You never thought of him when you saw me long for him?”

Juan coldly says, “Never.”

After a few minutes, Juan moves over and tries to seduce Yerma. He’s forceful and rough. She starts to kiss him back, but she’s crying, and she snaps. She strangles him violently and kills him.

“Barren,” she says. “Barren for certain. Barren. And alone. Now I can rest without wakening in fright to see if my blood will tell me of new blood. My body is dry forever.” She begins to repeat, “My son.”

Maria walks up to her in horror, and Yerma keeps repeating that she has killed her son. “I’ve killed my own son. My son… my baby, my baby, my child.”

The film ends, with the dedication “to my children” as a post script.

Yerma is a beautiful film, and Yerma’s descent into grief-stricken madness is haunting and powerful. We so rarely see female protagonists, and for a female protagonist to have such a visceral struggle with such a common, yet underrepresented, issue as infertility is moving and incredibly important.

Yerma killing Juan at the end of the film is symbolic of her overcoming not only the patriarchal culture that has defined her by her inability to mother, but also her infertility. She doesn’t see killing Juan as a way to marry someone else and try to have children; she sees killing him as freeing herself from the disappointment of not getting pregnant. Extinguishing him extinguishes her hopes.

Infertility when one desperately wants to conceive is grief, obsession, emptiness and feeling completely powerless. Yerma lives in a time and place where she has nothing else except being a wife and a mother to define her, so the added pressure of being unable to conceive a child drives her to the breaking point. Juan has repeatedly kept Yerma inside of their house and away from the outside world. When he admits he doesn’t care about having a child and then tries to assault her, it’s all too much. She has to end the physical manifestation of her grief and disappointment.

Yerma proves that a film about a woman’s struggles can work, even if those struggles don’t produce the kind of action that Hollywood seems to think it needs. Yerma’s inner turmoil is palpable, and good writing and directing make her story real and compelling. The power of Yerma rests not only in its treatment of infertility, but also its larger commentary on what a culture that stifles women can lead to. Yerma’s infertility is tragic, and so is her world.

Oh woman, how great is your sorrow

A sorrow so piteous

Your tears are like lemon juice

Sour as your hope and your lips

———-

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

The Power of Portrayal: Infertility, Reproductive Choice and Reproduction in ‘We Want a Child’

Movie poster for We Want a Child

Written by Leigh Kolb for our theme week on Infertility, Miscarriage, and Infant Loss.

The 1949 Danish film We Want a Child (Vi vil ha’ et barn) deals with abortion, failed adoption, infertility, detailed fertility and prenatal care and childbirth.

Depictions of any of these subjects are few and far between in modern film and television, so the fact that a feature film was made so long ago is remarkable in itself. We Want a Child offers a frank portrayal of the emotions involved in trying to build a family.

The film opens with Else and Lief’s wedding. The audience is introduced to a happy bride (who is just doing the church wedding–“veil and everything”–because her mother wants her to) and her playful new husband.

At the celebratory dinner reception, Else’s Uncle Hans toasts the new couple and the unity of the family “up through a new generation.”

Next the audience sees Uncle Hans–a bit of a buffoon–riding his bike over to Else’s house to check on her. “No news?” he says. “No news,” she says. “I don’t want you asking me each week.”

Clearly, the family is waiting for an announcement of Else and Lief’s pregnancy, and Else is already tiring of the requests.

“Two years have gone by…” is superimposed on the screen, and the uncle walks in again. Else is polishing silver, visibly upset, and Hans notes that it’s their two-year anniversary. A puppy walks into the room, and he’s shocked: “You got a dog?”

“I know perfectly well you don’t like to discuss it,” he says, “but why don’t you have kids?”

Else says she wants to enjoy their youth, and that they don’t want children right now. She quickly breaks down, though, and says, “I’m beginning to think I can’t have a child.” Uncle Hans, without judgment, encourages her to see a doctor.

Later Else asks Lief if he wants a baby. “Doesn’t every man?” he says, playfully. She cries and hugs him, saying “What if we can’t have a baby? Maybe I can’t have any.”

Their relationship is portrayed as equitable and loving; they joke and laugh and seem to be deeply in love. When she expresses her fears, he doesn’t belittle her or act uncomfortable. Since the threat of infertility often wreaks havoc in relationships, the depiction of Lief and Else’s relationship throughout the film is refreshing.

Else does visit the doctor, and tells him she’s afraid she can’t have any babies. He asks about her menstruation and rattles off a list of other health questions. He says, “I suppose we don’t have to consider abortion.” Else answers, “Yes, we have to.”

Else confides in the doctor that she’s had an abortion. He judges, but quickly moves on to helping her.

The doctor takes his glasses off and pauses. She says that it had been an operation a few years ago, and he notes that it was “a criminal abortion.” (Abortion in Denmark was legalized in 1973.)

He stands up, and Else pleads with him, saying she knew it was wrong, but it was during the war and her fiance (now husband) had to go underground. The doctor is judgmental (saying that she “preferred to kill her child” instead of looking for help), but it’s not nearly as damning as one would expect from the time. He goes on to tell her that it might be the reason she hasn’t conceived, and that sometimes abortion causes scar tissue in the fallopian tubes. He tells her they will take x-rays and run some tests.

As Else is leaving the doctor’s office, her friend Jytte is coming in. She’s become pregnant by the married man she’s having an affair with, and he wants nothing to do with her or a baby. Jytte goes in to talk to the doctor, and is clearly upset and unsure of what she wants to do. The doctor urges her to not have an abortion, lest she “deny motherhood” and ruin her chances to have a child in the future after going to a “quack” to have her “body mutilated.” He promises her it’s not as hopeless as she thinks, and she promises to think over it–but not before snapping that a woman should be able to make her own decisions.

After these scenes, the harsh judgment surrounding abortion–which at the time was a criminal act and wouldn’t have been a safe medical procedure, so conversations about it in a feature film could only go so far–ends.

As Else leaves the doctor’s office, a mother is struggling and Else offers to hold her baby for her. The way she looks at the child is full of love and deep longing.

Jytte decides against having an abortion (even though her lover wants her to).

The doctor shows Else her x-rays–one of her tubes is blocked, but the other side is open. “You have a chance, you can become pregnant,” he says. “You must hope.” He encourages her to tell her husband.

While Else is at the doctor, Lief has befriended a neighbor child, and their interactions are sweet. The bond shows that when a couple wants children but cannot have them, they often still “parent” in other ways, whether it’s a neighbor child, or a dog, or both, in their case.

Else comes home, resolved to tell Lief about her abortion.

“Lief, can you forgive me?” she cries.

He says it’s his fault, but she responds,

“It’s what we wanted, both of us. I should have told you long ago.”

“Don’t worry, darling, we’re together,” he says.

When Lief speaks with Uncle Hans about the fact that “we’ll have to get used to the idea that it’ll be only two” of them, alone, he adds that “the doctor gave her hope, but what else can he say?”

“It’s completely idiotic in a world like ours to want my own children… yet I want them,” Lief says.

Else soothes herself by thinking that they are enjoying their youth. They get a puppy. Lief befriends and mentors the neighbor child. Lief grapples with the fact that it feels selfish to desire biological children, but acknowledges the deep urge. The way the couple deals with and speaks about their infertility is truthful and realistic.

Uncle Hans sees an opportunity, and tells Jytte he knows of a young couple who would like to adopt a baby, and that she can stay with him (since if she becomes visibly pregnant she’ll lose her job and room).

Things seem to be falling in place. The next scene is Lief and the neighbor boy carrying a bassinet upstairs to the nursery. Else’s mother visits, and is rude and dismissive when Lief tells her that Else is visiting their new daughter. “Why on earth are you adopting?” she asks, and he tries to explain that they can’t have one themselves.

Lief goes to the clinic, flowers in hand, to see Jytte and his new daughter. Else steps out of the room, visibly upset. “She said she couldn’t do it,” she says. “She can’t go through with the adoption.”

While she’s upset, Else tells him that they shouldn’t be angry. Lief gives the flowers to the nurse to give Jytte.

At this moment, we see the most tension between Else and Lief. He says he needs to go back to work, and he coldly leaves after saying goodbye. Else is left alone. The scene is harshly realistic.

Back at home, Else’s mother is condemning adoption and Jytte, but Else softly tells her, “You can’t blame her for not wanting to give up her baby.” She quickly runs from the room and gets sick.

Her mother smiles, knowing what the nausea signifies.

Else is excited when she puts the pieces together, but nervous: “I’m more afraid that it isn’t true, or if it is true, it won’t be a healthy child.” Her mother assures her that worrying is part of being a mother. The fear involved with becoming pregnant after infertility is palpable.

Else goes back to the doctor, and he confirms her pregnancy. He asks her about rickets, scarlet fever, hereditary diseases, venereal diseases and he listens to her heart and checks her back.

Else weeps with joy when the doctor confirms her pregnancy.

“We have to be careful now that we have a responsibility for a new little citizen,” he says. When she asks if he thinks it’s a girl, he says, “Male? Female? It’s a human.”

This segment of the film feels a bit like an educational video for prenatal care–he explains all of the blood tests he’s taking (including testing her rhesus type so they can take care of her properly if it’s negative). Her scenes with the doctor are clearly meant to be instructional to viewers.

Else goes home, and coyly tells Lief that she is “expecting something.” They are both elated.

Else and Lief celebrate the news.

Her pregnancy progresses normally, and Else wakes up in the middle of the night feeling pain. (The dog, not forgotten, is fully grown in a bed by Else and Lief’s bed.) She and Lief rush to the clinic, and the midwife tells Lief, “Kiss your wife goodbye, we’ll call you when it’s over.” He begs to stay, but the midwife assures him that they’ve “no need” for him. They walk away, and Lief stands alone, staring. He walks home (where he continues to pace and call the clinic for updates).

Else is given anesthesia via inhalation, and the doctor tells her that she’ll “go to sleep, wake up and it will be over and done with.” This is most likely ether, as the drugs that induced Twilight Sleep were intravenous.

She wakes up, and a nurse hands her a beautiful girl, while Lief stands beside her. “Well, we made it,” he says. They are both beaming.

The baby sneezes (baby human and baby animal sneezes are certainly evolution’s way of causing women to spontaneously ovulate), and the film is over.

While there are a couple of moments in the film that will undoubtedly make a pro-choice feminist cringe, the fact that Else is still fertile even though she had an abortion is what’s important. If the film had truly been wholly anti-abortion, she would not have been able to go on and conceive and have a happy ending. Aside from the doctor’s comments (and of course he was acting as a medical and moral authority of the time), Else and Lief are united–and both recognize that an abortion is what they both wanted at the time–and she is not punished. At the time the film was celebrated in some circles for its clear anti-abortion message, but the fact remains that Else is not infertile. Her husband isn’t angry that she had an abortion. Everything turns out just fine.

Jytte isn’t punished for her decisions, either. She seems to have a mutually beneficial life at Uncle Hans’s house. Else’s forgiving response to the adoption falling through assures the audience that we are not to be angry with Jytte, either.

Lief visits Else and their new daughter at the clinic.

The frank discussion about infertility, abortion, prenatal care and adoption make this film noteworthy. It feels quite remarkable to watch characters discuss the range of emotions surrounding these subjects. The film isn’t a masterpiece, and it moves quickly and relies on some common tropes surrounding the topic of infertility and adoption, but some of the dialogue is striking in its honesty and timelessness.

The struggles that infertile couples face in 2013–the fear and guilt that you’ve done something wrong, the desire to have a biological child, the risk of adoption falling through, facing a marriage without children–are no different than they were almost 75 years ago. These struggles, however, are rarely represented on screen. The experience of viewing characters who deal with these life events feels meaningful and important. We shouldn’t have to dig so far and so hard to find them.

* * *

One of the reasons this film dealt so well with these subjects was no doubt its director, Alice O’Fredericks (she directed it with Lau Lauritzen). O’Fredericks was a prolific writer and producer–she wrote 38 screenplays and directed 72 films. Many of her films focused on women’s stories and women’s rights. The Copenhagen International Film Festival annually awards a female director with the Alice Award, named after O’Fredericks.

Alice O’Fredericks, Danish writer, director and actor

———-

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.