Not all European nations are as tasteless as the Dutch
Published by punkass marc May 29th, 2007 in Film, Bodily AutonomyKyso has a point about the Dutch sinking to new lows on the reality TV front, but at least the French stepped up to the plate — the Cannes Film Festival rewarded a political film with the Palme d’Or:
A harrowing film about illegal abortion in Communist-era Romania beat 21 movies by well-known directors such as Quentin Tarantino, Ethan and Joel Coen, and Wong Kar-wai to win the Cannes Film Festival’s top prize Sunday.
Romanian director Cristian Mungiu’s low-budget film, “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” depicts the horrors a student goes through to ensure her friend can have a secret abortion.
I was too busy coating myself in Axe Body Spray and watching UFC to hop across the pond and catch this year’s festival, so I can’t tell you if the film is deeply feminist or even any good, but I’m happy to see the international film community rewarding works of art that address the issues of the body.
Hopefully, members of the blogosphere can encourage as many “regular” Americans as possible to see the film when it arrives on our shores. Harrowing secret abortions may not only be a thing of the past over here; they may also be a thing of the near future.
Communist Romania always struck me as a classic example of what an ideal social conservative state would look like—rampant maternal morality, orphanages overflowing with children starved physically and emotionally. Don’t know if anyone else remembers Gingrich wistfully calling to take children away from mothers on welfare and cram them into orphanages. Just goes to show that you move far enough left or right, the authoritarian urge kicks in and the two are indistinguishable.