howard.schumann
Joined Nov 1999
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"Life's greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved" - Victor Hugo
Winner of the Golden Lion Award at the 2021 Venice Film Festival, Audrey Diwan's ("Losing It") harrowing abortion drama Happening takes place in rural France during the 1960s, a decade before abortion was legalized in France. Based on the memoir by Annie Erma ("Les Années Super-8"), the film is a gripping and, at times, uncomfortable reminder of the inherent physical and emotional dangers of illegal, "back-alley" abortions, procedures that pose a danger to the unborn child as well as to the health of the mother. Co-written by Marcia Romano ("Peaceful") and brought to life by the naturalistic cinematography of Laurent Tangy ("Mascarade"), the film dramatizes a young woman's painful quest to terminate her unwanted pregnancy.
In a perfectly realized performance by Anamaria Vartolomei ("How to Be a Good Wife"), Anne Duchesne is an ambitious literature student in her early twenties with aspirations to become a writer. She lives at a school dorm with her best friends Hélène (Luàna Bajrami, "Portrait of a Lady on Fire") and Brigitte (Louise Orry-Diquéro, "Occidental"), independent from her parents, Jacques and Gabrielle (Eric Verdin, "Faithful" and Sandrine Bonnaire, "Into the World"). While immersed in her studies to gain admittance to a top university, Anne discovers that she is pregnant, a situation that will threaten her continued education.
Diwan is unsparing in her depiction of the physical and emotional trauma a young girl had to go through to have an abortion, allowing us to see the graphic details that make Happening essential viewing for those confronting the Supreme Court decision to terminate Roe v Wade, the ruling that has protected abortion seekers and providers for the last fifty years in the United States. Until the moment of discovery, Anne is hard to distinguish from her immature roommates who spend their days studying and their nights looking for adventures at the local clubs.
Here, women who interface too much with boys are called "loose" or "sluts," and their sexual encounters consist of acting out of fantasies within their own dorm. When her roommates discover that Anne is pregnant, the temperature in their room plummets to zero, and Anne finds only grudging support from her "best friend" Brigitte, who tells her coldly that "it's not our business." While Diwan shows us the humiliation that Anne must endure, we learn very little of her history or her background and neither do we learn much about the young man who impregnated her.
Aware of the possibility of jail for the patient and the medical practitioner, a doctor she has trusted (Fabrizio Rongione, "The Unknown Girl") in the past tells her that she has to keep the child, reminding her that she cannot even discuss the matter with him. In addition, Jean (Kacey Mottet Klein, "Being 17"), a male friend, turns Anne's plea for help into a sexual proposition asking "why not?" since she no longer has any risk of becoming pregnant. Ultimately, Anne finds a surreptitious practitioner, Madame Rivière (Anna Mouglalis, "The Salamander") but that is only the beginning of her sorrows.
Yet, for all of its disturbing images, in telling this "horror" story, Diwan avoids melodrama, offering a tense, engaging, and realistic picture of what the world was like for a young woman who is carrying an unwanted child and what it could be again unless our collective voices are heard. Like events shown in Ursula Meier's brilliant 2012 film "Sister," life for an unwanted child may not be better than no life at all. Meier makes it evident that growing up in a world without love, even the most skillful and resilient child cannot fill the gaping hole it leaves.
Winner of the Golden Lion Award at the 2021 Venice Film Festival, Audrey Diwan's ("Losing It") harrowing abortion drama Happening takes place in rural France during the 1960s, a decade before abortion was legalized in France. Based on the memoir by Annie Erma ("Les Années Super-8"), the film is a gripping and, at times, uncomfortable reminder of the inherent physical and emotional dangers of illegal, "back-alley" abortions, procedures that pose a danger to the unborn child as well as to the health of the mother. Co-written by Marcia Romano ("Peaceful") and brought to life by the naturalistic cinematography of Laurent Tangy ("Mascarade"), the film dramatizes a young woman's painful quest to terminate her unwanted pregnancy.
In a perfectly realized performance by Anamaria Vartolomei ("How to Be a Good Wife"), Anne Duchesne is an ambitious literature student in her early twenties with aspirations to become a writer. She lives at a school dorm with her best friends Hélène (Luàna Bajrami, "Portrait of a Lady on Fire") and Brigitte (Louise Orry-Diquéro, "Occidental"), independent from her parents, Jacques and Gabrielle (Eric Verdin, "Faithful" and Sandrine Bonnaire, "Into the World"). While immersed in her studies to gain admittance to a top university, Anne discovers that she is pregnant, a situation that will threaten her continued education.
Diwan is unsparing in her depiction of the physical and emotional trauma a young girl had to go through to have an abortion, allowing us to see the graphic details that make Happening essential viewing for those confronting the Supreme Court decision to terminate Roe v Wade, the ruling that has protected abortion seekers and providers for the last fifty years in the United States. Until the moment of discovery, Anne is hard to distinguish from her immature roommates who spend their days studying and their nights looking for adventures at the local clubs.
Here, women who interface too much with boys are called "loose" or "sluts," and their sexual encounters consist of acting out of fantasies within their own dorm. When her roommates discover that Anne is pregnant, the temperature in their room plummets to zero, and Anne finds only grudging support from her "best friend" Brigitte, who tells her coldly that "it's not our business." While Diwan shows us the humiliation that Anne must endure, we learn very little of her history or her background and neither do we learn much about the young man who impregnated her.
Aware of the possibility of jail for the patient and the medical practitioner, a doctor she has trusted (Fabrizio Rongione, "The Unknown Girl") in the past tells her that she has to keep the child, reminding her that she cannot even discuss the matter with him. In addition, Jean (Kacey Mottet Klein, "Being 17"), a male friend, turns Anne's plea for help into a sexual proposition asking "why not?" since she no longer has any risk of becoming pregnant. Ultimately, Anne finds a surreptitious practitioner, Madame Rivière (Anna Mouglalis, "The Salamander") but that is only the beginning of her sorrows.
Yet, for all of its disturbing images, in telling this "horror" story, Diwan avoids melodrama, offering a tense, engaging, and realistic picture of what the world was like for a young woman who is carrying an unwanted child and what it could be again unless our collective voices are heard. Like events shown in Ursula Meier's brilliant 2012 film "Sister," life for an unwanted child may not be better than no life at all. Meier makes it evident that growing up in a world without love, even the most skillful and resilient child cannot fill the gaping hole it leaves.
To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly" - Henri Bergson
Some people experience maturity at an early age when they are thrust by circumstances into a position of responsibility before they are ready. Some do not experience it until their twenties, thirties, or even forties. Others never do. In a society where maturity is defined by what you do for a living, who you are with, and whether or not you are emotionally and/or financially independent, lacking these attributes can lead to serious doubts of self worth. Brilliantly performed by Renate Reinsve ("Welcome to Norway"), winner of the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival, Joachim Trier's ("Oslo, August 31st") masterful The Worst Person in the World tells the story of four years in the life of Julie, a young woman feeling adrift without concrete goals or relationships who, like Frances Ha in Noah Baumbach's comedy of the same name, must confront the idea that she is floundering and lacking direction in life.
Written by Eskil Vogt ("The Innocents") and nominated for Academy awards for Best Original Screenplay and Best International Film, the film is divided into 12 chapters with a prologue and epilogue thrown in. The Worst Person in the World does not contain any very, very bad people. The title, according to the director, derives from the idea that many young people in Norway conclude that if they fail at one thing or another, they are then "the worst person in the world." Trier says, "It's a Norwegian term." It's also self-deprecating. "Oh. I failed. I'm the worst person in the world." It's that feeling of misery and personal failure - in love, for example." "When was life supposed to start?" asks the narrator on Julie's behalf.
Drifting between a desire to become a medical doctor, a psychologist, a photographer, and a writer, on turning 30, Julie is certain about one thing. She does not want children until she is ready, especially to her way of thinking, not when she has so much unfilled potential. She is holding out for an undefined, perhaps illusory time when suddenly everything will come together. The issue crystallizes when she meets and falls in love with Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie, "Bergman Island"), a graphic novelist whose cartoon creature "Bobcat" is modeled after a big Nordic cat. He is a man ten years her senior who feels that time for him is fleeting and he wants to raise a family but feels blocked by Julie's refusal.
After crashing a party, Julie meets Eivind (Herbert Nordrum, "Amundsen"), a young, modern thinking, and relatively unambitious counter man at a coffee shop. He is a man of simple pleasures, very much unlike Aksel who does not make too many demands on her. Both married, in a chapter, ironically labeled "Cheating," they decide not to cheat on each other's partners, but it takes a more subtle, tongue-in-cheek turn. Julie asks him, "I don't want to be unfaithful; we both have partners, but are we allowed to do something, on the edge, that's considered not unfaithful?" We can figure out the answer.
After being together for a few years, Julie tells Aksel in a powerful sequence that she wants to separate, expressing her desire to move beyond needing acceptance to find a degree of self-realization. In one of the best scenes, the world freezes in space and time as Julie runs through the city looking to find Eivind after she leaves Aksel pouring her a cup of coffee. Filled with animated sequences, a psychedelic mushroom trip, and a peeing contest, the film does not fit our pictures about what a romantic comedy should look like. Trier said, "For a long time I have wanted to make a film about love. One that goes a bit deeper than normal onscreen love stories, where everything is so simple, the stories so clear-cut, the feelings so admirably unambiguous."
"The film," he continues, "doesn't dwell on hackneyed debates over the perils of living online, but it does ache for simple, tangible pleasures: The heat of touch and spontaneous human connection, and the luxury of stillness." Backed by a wide-ranging eclectic soundtrack that runs the gamut from Cobra Man, the Ahmad Jamal Trio, and Caribou to Billie Holiday, Harry Nilsson, and Art Garfunkel, The Worst Person in the World may be the worst film title in the world, but it is a work of warmth and freshness that thwarts our expectations at every turn, recreating the best of the genre, yet is also a film that has space for the pain of loss and regret. In its engaging way, the film tells us that who we really are is not about what we do or what we have but about our spiritual nature, the richness of character, and the ability to give and receive love.
As Art Garfunkel sings Jobim's "Waters of March" during the final credits, Julie discovers that who you are is: "A flower that blooms, A fox in the brush, A knot in the wood, The song of a thrush, The mystery of life, The steps in the hall, The sound of the wind, And the waterfall, It's the moon floating free, It's the curve of the slope, It's an ant, it's a be, It's a reason for hope, and the riverbank sings, Of the waters of march, It's the promise of spring, It's the joy in your heart."
Some people experience maturity at an early age when they are thrust by circumstances into a position of responsibility before they are ready. Some do not experience it until their twenties, thirties, or even forties. Others never do. In a society where maturity is defined by what you do for a living, who you are with, and whether or not you are emotionally and/or financially independent, lacking these attributes can lead to serious doubts of self worth. Brilliantly performed by Renate Reinsve ("Welcome to Norway"), winner of the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival, Joachim Trier's ("Oslo, August 31st") masterful The Worst Person in the World tells the story of four years in the life of Julie, a young woman feeling adrift without concrete goals or relationships who, like Frances Ha in Noah Baumbach's comedy of the same name, must confront the idea that she is floundering and lacking direction in life.
Written by Eskil Vogt ("The Innocents") and nominated for Academy awards for Best Original Screenplay and Best International Film, the film is divided into 12 chapters with a prologue and epilogue thrown in. The Worst Person in the World does not contain any very, very bad people. The title, according to the director, derives from the idea that many young people in Norway conclude that if they fail at one thing or another, they are then "the worst person in the world." Trier says, "It's a Norwegian term." It's also self-deprecating. "Oh. I failed. I'm the worst person in the world." It's that feeling of misery and personal failure - in love, for example." "When was life supposed to start?" asks the narrator on Julie's behalf.
Drifting between a desire to become a medical doctor, a psychologist, a photographer, and a writer, on turning 30, Julie is certain about one thing. She does not want children until she is ready, especially to her way of thinking, not when she has so much unfilled potential. She is holding out for an undefined, perhaps illusory time when suddenly everything will come together. The issue crystallizes when she meets and falls in love with Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie, "Bergman Island"), a graphic novelist whose cartoon creature "Bobcat" is modeled after a big Nordic cat. He is a man ten years her senior who feels that time for him is fleeting and he wants to raise a family but feels blocked by Julie's refusal.
After crashing a party, Julie meets Eivind (Herbert Nordrum, "Amundsen"), a young, modern thinking, and relatively unambitious counter man at a coffee shop. He is a man of simple pleasures, very much unlike Aksel who does not make too many demands on her. Both married, in a chapter, ironically labeled "Cheating," they decide not to cheat on each other's partners, but it takes a more subtle, tongue-in-cheek turn. Julie asks him, "I don't want to be unfaithful; we both have partners, but are we allowed to do something, on the edge, that's considered not unfaithful?" We can figure out the answer.
After being together for a few years, Julie tells Aksel in a powerful sequence that she wants to separate, expressing her desire to move beyond needing acceptance to find a degree of self-realization. In one of the best scenes, the world freezes in space and time as Julie runs through the city looking to find Eivind after she leaves Aksel pouring her a cup of coffee. Filled with animated sequences, a psychedelic mushroom trip, and a peeing contest, the film does not fit our pictures about what a romantic comedy should look like. Trier said, "For a long time I have wanted to make a film about love. One that goes a bit deeper than normal onscreen love stories, where everything is so simple, the stories so clear-cut, the feelings so admirably unambiguous."
"The film," he continues, "doesn't dwell on hackneyed debates over the perils of living online, but it does ache for simple, tangible pleasures: The heat of touch and spontaneous human connection, and the luxury of stillness." Backed by a wide-ranging eclectic soundtrack that runs the gamut from Cobra Man, the Ahmad Jamal Trio, and Caribou to Billie Holiday, Harry Nilsson, and Art Garfunkel, The Worst Person in the World may be the worst film title in the world, but it is a work of warmth and freshness that thwarts our expectations at every turn, recreating the best of the genre, yet is also a film that has space for the pain of loss and regret. In its engaging way, the film tells us that who we really are is not about what we do or what we have but about our spiritual nature, the richness of character, and the ability to give and receive love.
As Art Garfunkel sings Jobim's "Waters of March" during the final credits, Julie discovers that who you are is: "A flower that blooms, A fox in the brush, A knot in the wood, The song of a thrush, The mystery of life, The steps in the hall, The sound of the wind, And the waterfall, It's the moon floating free, It's the curve of the slope, It's an ant, it's a be, It's a reason for hope, and the riverbank sings, Of the waters of march, It's the promise of spring, It's the joy in your heart."