Two females lazily bind themselves to one another by braiding their hair together. In her new movie Women Talking, director Sarah Polley never addresses this picture, but it stays with you while you follow the tale of a group of women who gradually come to an agreement to take action that would save their lives.
The novel, largely based on a horrible actual tale of women in a Mennonite colony who were repeatedly raped by the males in their society as they slept, attacks the colonists originally attributed to Satan or hallucinations, is powerfully interpreted in the movie.
After screenings at the Telluride Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival, Sarah Polley’s drama has already been hailed as an Oscar contender. Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Rooney Mara, and Judith Ivey are among the ensemble of actors who play the women who gather in a barn in secret to decide how to react.
The screenwriter and director Polley is stingy with the explanatory facts. Nothing onscreen alerts viewers to the fact that this is based on a true event from Bolivia; you might not even be aware that it is a relatively contemporary narrative until a truck driver pulls up in the fields blasting The Monkees.
The True Tale behind Women Talking
The actual conditions that served as the basis for Women Talking are terrifying. Men in the Manitoba Colony raped girls and women for years by using an anesthetic originally intended for animals. In 2009, a victim who woke up in the middle of an assault managed to catch two of the perpetrators. The accused guys were initially imprisoned by their own people before being turned over to Bolivian authorities. Seven of the eight accused were found guilty at trial two years later, while a ninth managed to avoid arrest.
It would have been terrible no matter where it happened, but the fact that it took place here, where locals have isolated themselves from contemporary civilization while professing pacifism, made the situation especially bizarre. It was a sad transmission from a region that is obscure to most outsiders and where Low German, a relic of the 16th century, is still spoken.
The best-selling book based on women talking
Novelist Miriam Toews has a distinctive perspective on the lives of the survivors. Toews was reared as a Mennonite in Manitoba, Canada, and has chronicled her upbringing in a number of works. Her seventh book, Women Talking, is an explanation of how women communicate while they are living in a society that forbids them from doing so. It is based on horrifying rapes. It’s a somber book that allows its lyrics to come through subtly.
While August is aware of his position as an outlier and makes an effort to avoid editorializing, he still acts as a kind of middleman for the reader by providing context for the talks since he has encountered life outside of the farmlands. The ladies women talking can start to express their own aspirations as well as the injustices they have experienced through the lengthy and sometimes circular debates he describes.
The Screen adaptation of Women Talking
Director Sarah Polley is ideally suited to take on the task of adapting this talky and rather complex material. She started her career as a child actor on Canadian television before moving on to films. As a young adult, she made the transition to directing with films that looked at female desire. Her most recent film was the 2012 documentary Stories We Tell, which delves into her background and parentage and reveals how she was the product of her mother’s secret affair, which she did not learn about until she was well into adulthood. As Polley attempts to sort through a person who only exists in memory, it more than anything becomes a portrayal of her mother, who has long since passed away.
Women Talking is quite faithfully adapted for the movie, but Polley adds some significant alterations. She replaces August as the narrator with Autje (first-time actor Kate Hallett), one of the younger attendees who has also been abused, because she is even less interested than Toews in describing the unique characteristics of the Mennonites. The plot device used by Polley is that Autje is narrating the tale of the encounter with Rooney Mara’s character Ona’s unborn child. Ben Whishaw’s portrayal of August is still evident, although it is from a more constrained vantage point. The author’s comments, which reverberate over the movie and are captured by Polley’s lens, have the poetry of foreknowledge.
Faqs on Women Talking
Is what women are saying true?
The novel, largely based on a horrible actual tale of women in a Mennonite colony who were repeatedly raped by the males in their society as they slept, attacks the colonists originally attributed to Satan or hallucinations, is powerfully interpreted in the movie.
Where are the videos of women chatting shot?
Women talking has been shot in Toronto
What topic does the film Women Talk About?
Women talking is a tale after a string of sexual assaults, women in a remote religious colony strive to reconcile with their beliefs.
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