This film captivated me when I first viewed it 10 years ago and continues to do so. It captured the sense of living in a hostile world, evident to any feminist or woman who has suffered at the hands of patriarchy, the system, 'the man' or possibly even the US 'just us' system.
It makes obvious the masculinist basis of language and the inability of some women to describe their experience of oppression within social systems that utilize languages designed and created to express the dominant position.
This film is powerful, and in my experience, confuses only those that have no empathy with the experiences of any of the main characters; namely men.
Comments like those of Brian-343 quoted below miss the moral statement of the film, that patriarchal systems of dominance are SO destructive to some that it literally drives them to insanity (backed up by medical evidence of rates of mental illness in women only being equalled by those of men in times of extreme stress and distress: wartime).
'Did it seem like they answered the question why they did it? I didn't think so. I was left with a weak canned answer. It was just "they were oppressed by the patriarchal society, so they have a reason to kill." What? Do you kill a person based on your whim just because that person is a part of a group of people who "generally" oppresses you? I think the filmmaker failed to make her big moral statement - you don't excuse a criminal instantly because they were supposedly oppressed.'
The film doesn't excuse the murder. It demonstrates the reasons for it. The female protagonists do not escape punishment although Gorris does posit incarceration as preferable to their previous existences; marriage or servitude.
It is a crying shame that this film has not been transcribed onto DVD.
It makes obvious the masculinist basis of language and the inability of some women to describe their experience of oppression within social systems that utilize languages designed and created to express the dominant position.
This film is powerful, and in my experience, confuses only those that have no empathy with the experiences of any of the main characters; namely men.
Comments like those of Brian-343 quoted below miss the moral statement of the film, that patriarchal systems of dominance are SO destructive to some that it literally drives them to insanity (backed up by medical evidence of rates of mental illness in women only being equalled by those of men in times of extreme stress and distress: wartime).
'Did it seem like they answered the question why they did it? I didn't think so. I was left with a weak canned answer. It was just "they were oppressed by the patriarchal society, so they have a reason to kill." What? Do you kill a person based on your whim just because that person is a part of a group of people who "generally" oppresses you? I think the filmmaker failed to make her big moral statement - you don't excuse a criminal instantly because they were supposedly oppressed.'
The film doesn't excuse the murder. It demonstrates the reasons for it. The female protagonists do not escape punishment although Gorris does posit incarceration as preferable to their previous existences; marriage or servitude.
It is a crying shame that this film has not been transcribed onto DVD.
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