Women Talking based on the book with the same name by Miriam Toews - 10 out of 10

 

Women Talking based on the book with the same name by Miriam Toews

10 out of 10

 

 

This is a most disturbing narrative, based on real events – in fact this note is about the motion picture that is in turn inspired by the novel, a film that is one of the best of 2022, nominated for Best Motion Picture of the Year and Best Adapted Screenplay, winner of many trophies –which shows us a part of what women have had to endure through the ages, and many still do, in spite of the progress made in civilized realms, there are plenty of brutish places where they are expected to act much like in this saga here…

 

We are in 2010, not in the Dark Ages, it has to be highlighted, and members of a religious community have been raped, abused, beaten and tortured for years, and they now have to decide about their future, that of their children – there are discussions (hence Women Talking) about whether they should, could take the boys along, if they decide to abandon the only place they have known all their lives, and some say that males are dangerous, even at the age of twelve or fourteen and this is debated.

The men in this fundamentalist place, if I am allowed a bad joke, remind me of the evangelicals that have voted for Trump (many of them still favor the ghoul) in the name of changes he promised, such as nominating conservative justices on the Supreme Court (the vile demon has had the chance to put in no fewer than three, exposing the hypocrisy of the republicans, who had refused Gorsach in the name of waiting for the elections in some months, but when RBG died, they placed the woman with multiple children [Barrett I think is the name] on the bench, with a presidential election in just weeks)

 

Therefore, you need to follow these rules, only when it is our turn, we do not bide y the same regulations, that we have devised, not you…this would lead to chaos, loss of credibility, in my mind I have some of what William Golding has said about his chef d’oeuvre Lord of The Flies http://realini.blogspot.com/2014/10/lord-of-flies-by-william-goldingralph.html he was asked about the absence of girls and the author explained that he knew boys, he had lived around them, and besides, with girls, there would have to be sex and that would have had to be included in some form or other.

Most important for this reader though was the statement made on the crucial message of the magnum opus, William Golding saying that ‘you have to have rules, with no rules you have nothing, you have chaos’…alternatively, you could have the rules from Fight Club http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/07/fight-club-by-chuck-palahniuk-nine-out.html a book and motion picture that both have the status of ‘cult’ works of art, where ‘you never talk about the Fight Club, you have to fight’

The rule in Women Talking, in the religious community where the oppressed women lived, was that they obeyed their men, as one of the elders says ‘I have never asked for anything, we could not ask for a glass of water, a curtain to be moved, a hand on the back of the head…it is ironic that now the first and only thing that we could ask them might be to leave’ words to that effect I guess, this is not a quote

 

There has been no limit to the vileness of the male chauvinist pigs, who have abused more than a hundred women, children…indeed, Salome, played by Claire Foy, The younger Queen, in previous series of The Crown, is so enraged by the abuse suffered by her child that she states ‘she will kill, tore limb from limb, dance on the grave of the one who will hurt her child, and if God is merciful, He will forgive…’

That was an approximation of what she said, and to continue, she wonders how it was possible for The Almighty to allow for this to happen to them, and albeit not given here, the explanation would be Free Will, as explained by CS Lewis http://realini.blogspot.com/2015/02/mere-christianity-by-c-s-lewis.html and others, God has not wanted to create a machinery, a system where everything functions automatically.

 

Hence, humans have the ability to choose if they are evil – and invade Ukraine, as monster Putin is doing, eye Taiwan, as another demon, Xi, is, planning to annex that democratic island – or they do good – this in fact one of the Happiness rules  Happiness Activity No 4: Practicing Acts of Kindness- doing good things for others either friends or strangers, either directly or anonymously, either spontaneously or planned – we find it in the stupendous, life changing book The How of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomrsky http://realini.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-how-of-happiness-by-sonja.html and the effects have been proved and tested

However, in the case of Women Talking there is little happiness to talk about, if any, there is one element of Positivity that I could see, Hope, which is one of the ten components identified by Barbara Fredrickson in another classic of Psychology, Positivity http://realini.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-how-of-happiness-by-sonja.html - the others are amusement, awe, inspiration, interest, joy, serenity, pride, gratitude and love

 

Looking again at the short list, we could argue that there is serenity in these women – when they are not enraged by what is going on, some of them have a halo, a capacity to distort the field near them, as Steve Jobs was reputed to be able to do – then there would be Gratitude and Love, which for a community of fervent believers is clearly the mot du jour, on a daily basis, notwithstanding the fact that Salome may look like she is rebelling, when she questions why an all-powerful, omniscient being (not using those words) did not help.

This is an intense drama, we clearly hope that the Women Talking will conclude that they have to depart, leaving those monsters behind, and there is a feeling that males in general should share in the blame, especially those of us raised in retrograde societies – under the Ceausescu regime, we were told that ‘it is the rooster that sings, not the hen’, which translated in practice was bullying, abusing, keeping women ‘in their place’, dominating them, keeping them away from responsibility…there were exceptions, the most prominent one was the wife of the tyrant, a vile figure – if we look back, we have not been as abominable as the absent men in this narrative, but we have to contemplate Atonement http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world

http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html