The director Sarah Polley paints in ‘Ellas habland’ a fresco of muted tones with a powerful and epic staging that shows a whole revolution.
‘They speak’ could be a play –with the interior of a barn as a stage and the word as the engine of the story–, but on stage we would miss out on the exciting visual proposal of Sarah Polley, who adapts the novel by Miriam Toews turning each close-up on a moral issue. The director confronts us a story of recognizable realities and patriarchal violence that moves between the intimate and the collective, between the particular and the universal: the eight leading women break the silence about the abuses suffered by the men of their religious community – for years they have been drugged and raped while the aggressors blamed Satan – and meet to decide whether to fight or leave.
Perhaps Polley will paint this fresco in muted tones, but its staging is powerful and epic: it is not showing a conversation, but a revolution. There is nothing more important than keeping the focus on them – the men appear as ghosts – and portraying their anger, their sense of humor, their intelligence and their hope for the future.
To imagine revolutions and rethink the world in a feminist key
DATA SHEET
Address: Sarah Polley Distribution: Frances McDormand, Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Ben Whishaw, Jessie Buckley Country: USA Year: 2022 Release date: 2-17-2023 Gender: Drama Script: Sarah Polley Novel: Miriam Toews Duration: 104 min.
Synopsis: A group of women, in an isolated religious colony in the middle of Bolivia, struggle to reconcile with their faith after a series of sexual assaults committed by men in the colony.
Source: Fotogramas
Emily Jhon is a product and service reviewer at Gossipify, known for her honest evaluations and thorough analysis. With a background in marketing and consumer research, she offers valuable insights to readers. She has been writing for Gossipify for several years and has a degree in Marketing and Consumer Research from the University of Oxford.
