'Silence guarantees nothing will change': film-makers challenge the anti-abortion movement
(excellent article)
‘Silence guarantees nothing will change’: film-makers challenge the anti-abortion movement
Audrey Diwan’s 1960s-set drama "Happening" is the latest in a wave of films on an issue that is increasingly topical
Raw, immediate and spare … Anamaria Vartolomei in director Audrey Diwan’s drama Happening. Photograph: IFC Films
Rachel Pronger
Fri 22 Apr 2022 06.00 EDT
When Audrey Diwan first started writing a script about abortion, people would ask her why. Adapting Annie Ernaux’s memoir about the author’s struggle to obtain an illegal abortion as a student in 1960s France, Diwan knew the story was important, but it was difficult to persuade others of its relevance. Fast forward a few years, and no one is asking why. When Happening premiered at the Venice film festival last year, critics were quick to draw connections between the plight of Anne (the character in the film) and the tightening of abortion restrictions around the world. As it lands in UK cinemas this week, this period piece feels timelier than ever.
"Happening" arrives on our screens at a fraught moment. In the US, Republicans are continuing a prolonged legislative assault on abortion as the supreme court waits to pass judgment on a case which could overturn Roe v Wade. In Europe, the debate around abortion access has been regalvanised by the pandemic, and last year Poland passed a near total ban, making it the sixth European country to impose severe restrictions. Elsewhere we’ve seen a swing in the opposite direction, with moves towards decriminalisation in Colombia, Argentina and Mexico. The overall effect of this push-pull is an atmosphere of intense instability as we face up to a new phase in the struggle for reproductive justice.
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This sense of history in the making has filtered down to film-makers. When "Happening" screened at Sundance this January, it appeared alongside two other period films exploring the subject. Phyllis Nagy’s "Call Jane" follows a suburban housewife in 1960s Chicago called Joy who becomes a pro-choice activist after undergoing an illegal abortion, while Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes’s "The Janes" is a documentary about the real underground activists depicted in Nagy’s film. Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s recent "Lingui, the Sacred Bonds", also follows a woman seeking an illegal abortion, this time in contemporary Chad. Back in the US the recent emergence of the “abortion road trip” sub-genre, sees films such as Eliza Hittman’s "Never Rarely Sometimes Always" and Rachel Lee Goldenberg’s "Unpregnant" address the impact of restrictive legislation on women’s lives.
Abortion is not a new topic for cinema – the first Hollywood feature to tackle the subject was released in 1916 – but the candid, explicitly political approach of this new wave of films feels revelatory. Historically Hollywood has either avoided the subject or relegated abortion storylines to moralistic subplots. There are some indie outliers – notably Alexander Payne’s satirical "Citizen Ruth" and Gillian Robespierre’s “abortion romcom” "Obvious Child" – but otherwise we’ve had to turn to the European arthouse and films like Agnès Varda’s "One Sings, the Other Doesn’t" and Cristian Mungiu’s "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" for more nuanced, women-centred abortion stories. "Happening" is part of this tradition; "Call Jane", in contrast, is a much more unlikely proposition: a solidly middlebrow yet unapologetically pro-choice mainstream American movie.
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"Happening" is released on 22 April in UK cinemas.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/apr/22/silence-guarantees-nothing-will-change-film-makers-challenge-the-anti-abortion-movement