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A Long, Strong Line
Early in the film, widowed Antonia
and her teenage daughter Danielle alight from the bus
that delivers them to the World-War-II-ravaged Dutch
country town of Antonia's birth. We see writing on the
wall which reads “Welcome to our liberators.” It's our
first hint of the impact that Antonia and her
matrilineal clan will have on their ancestral home. They
have come to bury Antonia's mother but remain to foster
two more generations, as the film spans a period of
about 50 years.
ANTONIA'S LINE, the 1996 Foreign-Language- film Oscar
winner, is a family saga, and though it bears many of
the familiar hallmarks of the form — the village full of
colorful characters, the waxing and the waning of the
seasons, and the inevitable conflicts between the needs
of the individual and those of the community — the film
is thoroughly original in its feminist simplicity.
Antonia and her “line” of descendants generate a
matrilineal heritage and an independence of thought
whose effects extend beyond their immediate blood
relations and permeate the community.
Beginning with Antonia's mother, who dies spewing
invective at her long-gone philanderer of a husband,
these self-defined women have little need for husbands.
This is not the same as saying they have no need for sex
— be it for pleasure, for procreation, or for love.
Antonia makes a friend and ally of the kind widower with
five sons who wants her hand. Years later, she agrees to
sleep with him, though not to wed him. Danielle goes to
the city to find herself a sperm donor when her urge for
maternity strikes. Her daughter Therèse, a musical and
mathematical prodigy, can find no man who's her
intellectual equal, so, instead, she marries her best friend
with whom she grew up and who loves her unconditionally.
Family, for this clan, includes much more than blood
relations. Through the years, their family expands to
embrace friends, neighbors, and refugees from the
margins of society. There's simple-minded Loony Lips and
retarded rape- victim DeeDee; Therèse's schoolteacher
Lara who becomes Danielle's life partner; Letta, the
unwed mother with nowhere to go; the self-defrocked
cleric whose passion for life overwhelms his passion for
religion; Crooked Finger, the dour philosopher hermit
friend of Antonia and her offspring — all these, and
more, become a part of Antonia’s daily life. It is in
this context that Antonia wakes up, at the very
beginning of the movie, knowing that this will be the
day of her death. Surrounded by good company and ample
evidence of a life well-spent, Antonia is ready to
partake in the miracle of death — a miracle because it's
a natural part of the brave mystery of life.
Previously best known for her gripping polemical narrative
“A Question of Silence,” Dutch filmmaker Marleen Gorris,
with ANTONIA'S LINE, infused her polemic with an
all-inclusive humanism, and created a feminist fable for
all time.
—
Steve Taylor |
Some Points for
Reflection
From ancient times, how a society receives the
stranger — whether it responds with fear and hostility
or with gracious hospitality — has
been a measure of how civilized
it is. One of the guises of Zeus, Zeus Xenios (from the Greek
word of hospitality, xenia), underscores his role
as the protector of strangers. In a similar way, Yahweh
admonishes the Hebrew people: “You shall love the stranger, for you were once strangers in the land of Egypt.”2 And the Biblical stories go
further, suggesting
that guests carry gifts with them: When Abraham receives
three strangers into his tent and offers them water,
bread, and a choice tender calf, they reveal themselves
to him as the Lord announcing that his wife Sarah will give birth to a son.
ANTONIA'S LINE is a rich, evocative meditation on the sacred
meaning of hospitality. In ever- expanding
numbers, an eclectic assortment of social misfits find
their way to Antonia's farmyard and the sanctuary
of her boisterous Sunday lunches. They come because they
find — in the “free space” that hospitality creates
— liberation: a “space where a stranger can enter and
become a friend.” Dutch theologian Henri Nouwen
continues:
Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer space
where change can take place. [Paradoxically,] it wants
to create emptiness, not a fearful emptiness, but a
friendly emptiness where strangers can enter and find
themselves free; free to sing their own songs, speak
their own languages, dance their own dances.3
What gifts do these strangers bring? They bring
themselves. They bring the gift of community.
Society has said to them: “‘We do not
need you. You are not important.’ Even worse...’We do
not want you. You are the cause of our problems. You
bring us only suffering.’” But as Wayne Muller
goes on to
assure us:
This was
never true. It is not true now.
The family of the earth aches for your gifts. We all
need what you have. We cannot survive unless you join
our circle and bring who you are to our gathering. Do
not be afraid... A kind life, a life of spirit, is
fundamentally a life of courage — the courage simply to
bring what you have, to bring who you are.4 We are all longing to go home to some place we have never been — a place half remembered, half envisioned...
Community. Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free.5
— Bolton
Anthony |
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Retired lawyer and magistrate, Steve Taylor reviewed films for WHQR-FM, Wilmington, NC's public radio station, from 1995 through 2007 as a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association. He now makes his homes in Philadelphia and Wilmington..jpg)
Bolton Anthony is the founder of
Second Journey. 
