Post by Dracula on Jun 5, 2022 12:59:40 GMT -5
Happening(5/18/2022)
The French film Happening debuted last fall at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the prestigious Golden Lion, beating out some heavy hitters like The Power of the Dog, The Hand of God, and The Lost Daughter. As it wasn’t submitted by France to compete in that year’s Best International Film Oscar race the movie was held back by American distributor IFC, a move that would be fortuitous as they are now releasing it when it couldn’t possibly be more relevant as it’s a film about abortion rights. The film is set at a prestigious boarding school in provincial France in the late 50s/early 60s before abortions had been legalized (which would happen in 1975). The film follows a teenage girl at this school who becomes pregnant and realizes she’s going to need to find a way to procure an illegal abortion or else she will need to abandon her studies and the future she wants for herself. That setup is of course not terribly removed from the similarly procedurally minded art house hit 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, though this film is set over several weeks of trying to find an abortionist while Cristian Mungiu’s film is set over a single night. Additionally, while Mungiu’s film is also pro-choice for roughly the same reasons, it is perhaps more interested in looking at illegal abortion as one of many manifestations of the Ceaușescu regime’s control over everyone in that society while this film is a bit more directly focused on the way the patriarchy controls women. At the end of the day I do still think this sits a bit in the shadow of that Romanian New Wave classic, but that movie is nearly fifteen years old at this point and we are probably due for a new take on the concept. Shot in a confining Academy ratio, the film is a pretty stark illustration of how laws like this are oppressive to all parties involved and basically make it impossible for women to live as freely within society. It’s a stark indictment of the era it depicts, and sadly the likely future of many places closer to home.
**** out of Five
The French film Happening debuted last fall at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the prestigious Golden Lion, beating out some heavy hitters like The Power of the Dog, The Hand of God, and The Lost Daughter. As it wasn’t submitted by France to compete in that year’s Best International Film Oscar race the movie was held back by American distributor IFC, a move that would be fortuitous as they are now releasing it when it couldn’t possibly be more relevant as it’s a film about abortion rights. The film is set at a prestigious boarding school in provincial France in the late 50s/early 60s before abortions had been legalized (which would happen in 1975). The film follows a teenage girl at this school who becomes pregnant and realizes she’s going to need to find a way to procure an illegal abortion or else she will need to abandon her studies and the future she wants for herself. That setup is of course not terribly removed from the similarly procedurally minded art house hit 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, though this film is set over several weeks of trying to find an abortionist while Cristian Mungiu’s film is set over a single night. Additionally, while Mungiu’s film is also pro-choice for roughly the same reasons, it is perhaps more interested in looking at illegal abortion as one of many manifestations of the Ceaușescu regime’s control over everyone in that society while this film is a bit more directly focused on the way the patriarchy controls women. At the end of the day I do still think this sits a bit in the shadow of that Romanian New Wave classic, but that movie is nearly fifteen years old at this point and we are probably due for a new take on the concept. Shot in a confining Academy ratio, the film is a pretty stark illustration of how laws like this are oppressive to all parties involved and basically make it impossible for women to live as freely within society. It’s a stark indictment of the era it depicts, and sadly the likely future of many places closer to home.
**** out of Five
