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Review

A celebration of the love, unity and strength of women, this wonderfully endearing and touching family chronicle/fable from lesbian director Gorris centering on four generations of women playfully alternates between dramatic realism and magical realism (and might very well have been what the film version of Isabelle Allende's The House of the Spirits should have been). As written by Gorris, Antonia's Line is muted in its anti-male attitude as compared with her previous diatribe-filled dramas. (That's not to say that the men get off easy -- for they are seen as boorish and oppressive, a necessary evil in some cases, acceptable mates in others).

The story, set in a small Dutch village, spans decades -- from the devastation of the post-war period to the present -- and follows the fiercely independent-minded Antonia (Willeke van Ammelrooy), who returns to her childhood farmhouse to till the soil and raise a family; all without the aid of the misogynist townsfolk, a hypocritical church and the often violence-prone men. Antonia is aided by her lesbian daughter, a granddaughter and great-granddaughter and a group of social rejects who flock to her. This Oscar-winning Best Foreign Film is masterful storytelling that enthralls. (Dutch with English subtitles)