Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 11-December-05
Spoiler Rating: Low

Antonia's Line (1995)

A friend and I have identified a marvelous phenomenon which we call the "European Beauty Boost." This phenomenon is evident when a plain or even homely woman may be deemed attractive because she is obviously European and therefore has an allure that transcends her physical appearance. A similar boost explains in part why I enjoy the movie "Antonia's Line." It's quite possible that I would reject such a conventionally opinionated tale if it were told in an American voice.

The story centers around a Dutch woman (played by Willeke van Ammelrooy) who returns to her hometown after WWII and spends the next 25 years presiding over the lives of her daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter, along with others who are drawn to her strength. Antonia is an Old World heroine, i.e., vigorous and self-sufficient, with an all-knowing twinkle in her eye and an innate understanding of the cycles of birth and death which define our existence on Earth. As enabled by postwar reality, men are brought into her sphere only when she (or her kind) has a need for them, as in a humorous scene when she helps her daughter find an unwitting sperm donor. It's not that Antonia fuels her little gynocracy with a hatred of men — indeed, she shares a long-standing affection with a local farmer (Jan Decleir) — it's just that she sees no sense in relying on anybody else, especially a gender notably different than hers in its capacity for violence (against both others and themselves, of both the just and unjust kind).

As marked by phases of womanhood and the moon, "Antonia's Line" describes the full variety of life that plays out within the heroine's family and the village where they live, including many instances of love, hate, absurdity, and grief. (The abiding influence of religion, community, and food is agreeably continental; however, there are a few moments of "magic" that no boost of Dutchness can excuse.) Antonia raises generations of females who inherit her spirit but represent the shift toward a more modern and less unshakable frame of mind. Her daughter Danielle (Els Dottermans) communes with art more than agriculture, and Danielle's daughter is a mathematical genius with an almost tragically philosophical bent. Writer/director Marleen Gorris suggests that these women might have lost their way without Antonia's earthbound presence to guide them. The film thus extols the power of the Earth Mother, an old-fashioned sentiment that relies heavily on its European identity.

Copyright © 2005 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.