A very simple story: a woman in her fifties decides to leave her family for no other reason than wanting to be alone.Her children being grown-ups she decides to stop playing the various roles society (through her family) imposes on her: mother, daughter, wife, sister...
Besides its Intelligent script and direction, top use of (Georgian) music
Reviews
4 Reviews
Love at First Child
(2015)
More to it than a rom-com
1 May 2019
At first, I thought I wouldn't survive the clichés and the miscast female lead of this variation on "two men and a baby."
But there's more to this movie than just an entertaining rom-com that is forgotten the next morning.
Like in her previous feature, Giafferi's male personages seem to possess very limited capacities: they are only good at what they think they are good at, and they are afraid of everything else. Their female partners, on the other hand, just do what has to be done, even when they've never done it before.
In the end, Giafferi seems to think men can change, but it's not an easy process: they will have to use their fists before gaining any wisdom. Is that what "toxic masculinity" is all about? Well, looking at the personage of the gay friend in the movie, the answer is certainly yes!
Split
(II) (2016)
A most intelligent cry of revolt against violence perpetrated on women
25 March 2017
Warning: Spoilers
Inanna (Amy Ferguson) joins an experimental theater group that works on the Mesopotamian myth of Inanna, and more specifically on the liberation of enslaved women. After a few rehearsals, she comes to the conclusion that she does not possess the primal rage and the raw longing for freedom that the other women in the play possess. In a most upsetting scene, these women tell how they have been victims of extreme (sexualized) violence. At the same time, Inanna falls head over heels in love with Derek, a mask maker (Morgan Spector), and marries him. Right from the start, she adapts her life to his, while he refuses to change anything in his own life. He doesn't even stop the affair he had with his assistant (Antonia Campbell-Hughes), claiming that she was there first. Inanna soon realizes that she is losing her identity while getting nothing in return. Profoundly wounded and feeling like drowning, she is now able to express the primal rage and the raw longing for freedom that the play requires from her.
The Daughter
(2015)
Revenge, Truth, Promiscuity, Patriarchy
1 September 2016
Warning: Spoilers
I found three themes particularly interesting in The Daughter: revenge,truth, and promiscuity.
Revenge - Many years after having left home, Christian returns for his father's wedding. He accuses his father (Henry) of having cheated on his mother and of being responsible for her suicide. When the bride asks Henry what's going on, he does not want to bring his coming wedding in jeapoardy and refuses to tell her.
Later, Christian calls his girlfriend and hears that their relationship is over. Devastated, he decides to reveal to his best friend Oliver that Henry has fathered Oliver and Charlotte's 16-years old daughter Hedvig.
Having failed with his father, Christian's quest for vengeance finds its fulfillment when he destroys his friend's family.
Truth - Revealing the truth destroys a family (that of Oliver, Charlotte and Hedvig). On the other hand, concealing the truth to his bride allows Henry to start a new family.
Promiscuity - The dramas around which the movie is built are caused by several personages cheating on each other. Very remarkably, the cheating is principally the work of the female characters: - Walter (Oliver's father) tells the story of his wife who ran away with an artist - Paul's girlfriend (Grace) announces to Paul that she has been cheating on him when seeing her old boyfriend again - Oliver learns that his wife Charlotte had an affair with Christian's father and was in love with him at the time they were already together. To make things worse, she tells him that he is not the father of their daughter Hedvig, but that Henry is.
Strengthening the promiscuous character of the female personages, the 16-year old Hedvig entices her boyfriend, Adam, to have sex with her. Whereas it is obvious that it is his first sexual experience, she has had sex before, but refuses to say so when he asks her. Later, she feels attracted to Christian and asks him to kiss her.
On the male side, only Henry has cheated on all the females of his life.
Finally, the patriarchal figure of Henry seems to be unaffected by all the misery he causes around him. At the beginning, he announces to his employees that his factory has to close, obliging all these families that have lived in this small town all their life to go somewhere else to find work. Nevertheless, his lifestyle does not seem to be in the least affected by that. When the financial fraud that he and Walter had organized together went wrong, Walter was indicted and went to jail, while Henry was left unscathed. As to his role in the death of his first wife and to his rejection of Charlotte when she was pregnant, it has not affected him either: he is going to remarry a woman half his age. What's more, the two deaths that mark the movie - that of his first wife and Hedvig's suicide - are indirectly attributed to him, but this does not disturb him: the hunt scene at the very beginning of the movie symbolizes his unrepentant stance.
Revenge - Many years after having left home, Christian returns for his father's wedding. He accuses his father (Henry) of having cheated on his mother and of being responsible for her suicide. When the bride asks Henry what's going on, he does not want to bring his coming wedding in jeapoardy and refuses to tell her.
Later, Christian calls his girlfriend and hears that their relationship is over. Devastated, he decides to reveal to his best friend Oliver that Henry has fathered Oliver and Charlotte's 16-years old daughter Hedvig.
Having failed with his father, Christian's quest for vengeance finds its fulfillment when he destroys his friend's family.
Truth - Revealing the truth destroys a family (that of Oliver, Charlotte and Hedvig). On the other hand, concealing the truth to his bride allows Henry to start a new family.
Promiscuity - The dramas around which the movie is built are caused by several personages cheating on each other. Very remarkably, the cheating is principally the work of the female characters: - Walter (Oliver's father) tells the story of his wife who ran away with an artist - Paul's girlfriend (Grace) announces to Paul that she has been cheating on him when seeing her old boyfriend again - Oliver learns that his wife Charlotte had an affair with Christian's father and was in love with him at the time they were already together. To make things worse, she tells him that he is not the father of their daughter Hedvig, but that Henry is.
Strengthening the promiscuous character of the female personages, the 16-year old Hedvig entices her boyfriend, Adam, to have sex with her. Whereas it is obvious that it is his first sexual experience, she has had sex before, but refuses to say so when he asks her. Later, she feels attracted to Christian and asks him to kiss her.
On the male side, only Henry has cheated on all the females of his life.
Finally, the patriarchal figure of Henry seems to be unaffected by all the misery he causes around him. At the beginning, he announces to his employees that his factory has to close, obliging all these families that have lived in this small town all their life to go somewhere else to find work. Nevertheless, his lifestyle does not seem to be in the least affected by that. When the financial fraud that he and Walter had organized together went wrong, Walter was indicted and went to jail, while Henry was left unscathed. As to his role in the death of his first wife and to his rejection of Charlotte when she was pregnant, it has not affected him either: he is going to remarry a woman half his age. What's more, the two deaths that mark the movie - that of his first wife and Hedvig's suicide - are indirectly attributed to him, but this does not disturb him: the hunt scene at the very beginning of the movie symbolizes his unrepentant stance.
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