Suffragette - Taten statt Worte

It can be risky critiquing a film homage to heroines of feminism, especially one with a star cast that includes Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, Ben Whishaw and a Meryl Streep cameo. Respect for the cause, however, does not guarantee respect for the film, and this one chooses a very limited lens with which to view this episode of history. It does have high production values, narrative authenticity and sensitivity for the feminist struggle in early 20th century Britain. But it gets lost in balancing the broader sweep of history that shapes gender relations and the impact of particular individuals.

The story line is uni-linear, the atmosphere dark and claustrophobic, and much of the acting is melodramatic, with long close-ups of Mulligan's finely nuanced expressions recording her progress from an abused laundry worker to what today would be called a radicalised political terrorist. The historical lens is so myopic that you could walk away believing the vote was won by a few protesting women, the bombing of some public letterboxes and a suffragette who threw herself under the King's horse. No more struggle…job done! Of course, that is not true and the struggle continues.

Despite these limitations, it's a finely crafted British film. The fictional heroine Maude Watts is an avatar for the British working class women who risked everything, including their lives, in fighting for the vote. Men of all classes are the demons of this tale, and one of its chilling insights is how the most dangerous enemies of suffragettes were husbands. Patriarchal governments left it to ordinary menfolk to sort out their unruly women in an era where wives were legally subordinate to husbands. Maude's contempt for her treatment at work and home propels her into the swirling orbit of violent protest where "war is the only language men listen to". Evicted by her husband for shaming him, she is left with nothing; by law, even her son was her husband's property. During the struggles, over one thousand British women were imprisoned and treated shamefully, a fact only acknowledged in the film's closing credits. Admittedly, historical judgement is difficult to translate into cinematic language, but many films have done it better. If you are interested in the history of feminist struggle from the viewpoint of the small people who made up the bigger story you will like this film.

The first feature film I can remember dealing with the fight for women's voting rights in the United Kingdom, puts its subject across respectfully, if carefully. Most of the major events I've read about historically on the movement's road to enfranchisement are covered in the film, like the letterbox campaign, attack on Lloyd George's house, their hunger strike and resultant force-feeding in prison and most famously the shocking martyrdom of Emily Davidson who ran onto Epsom racecourse on Derby Day in front of the King's horse, the latter very realistically.

The device used by the writer and director to get the viewer close to the action is through the invented Carey Mulligan character Maud Watts, a young factory worker, docilely married to her husband and the doting mother of their infant son, who develops an interest in the suffragette movement through a work colleague. Stepping in for the latter at an important consultation with a UK Government committee on votes for women, she finds herself, initially unwillingly, drawn into activism on behalf of the cause.

I did feel the film somewhat overdid her travails and some of the coincidental events in her life. We learn indirectly that her male employer has abused her at work since she was a child and is now doing so to another pre-teen girl at the factory. Her husband doesn't understand her new found politicism and in short order expels her from their house, denies her access to her son and eventually has him adopted without her knowledge. She too is the one accompanying Davidson to the Derby. While I laud the equally important political point of maternal rights to their children in the event of marital separation being argued along with voter's rights, I did feel that the world seemed to revolve too much around Mulligan's character. She thus comes across more as a cipher than a real person and the film might have played better if she had been based on a real person.

I also felt the sub-plot about the child-molesting boss jarred somewhat and belonged in a different film entirely, the two main causes didn't need this extra justification, heinous as the crimes are. While I'm criticising, I also felt the cliff-hanging direction style employed (especially in the build-up to the Derby climax) was overdone with looming orchestral swells in the background and a virtual countdown to the incident itself, to be somewhat inconsistent with the seriousness of the subject matter.

The acting is good by most of the leads, Mulligan in particular. Quite why they rolled out the barrel to find a place in the cast for Meryl Streep to deliver a brief but showy cameo as the cause's figurehead Emmeline Pankhurst, I don't know. Nevertheless in its gritty depiction of the privations and struggles of the brave women who challenged the male-dominated political landscape of the day, this film deserves admiration and recognition for its subject matter if not quite for its execution.

Scripted by Abi Morgan, who gave us THE IRON LADY four years ago, this is a finely judged snapshot of a key year (1912-13) in the decades-long battle for women to get the vote in England. Meryl Streep has brief but commanding appearances as cranky old Mrs Pankhurst, imperiously redirecting her campaign from the ruling class to the working class. The key character here is the fictitious Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan), a young laundrywoman and mother who is drawn into the new campaign of 'civil disobedience', which will soon include blowing up post boxes and cutting telegraph wires.

Of the male characters, only Helena Bonham Carter's husband (Finbar Lynch) is sympathetic to the Cause. Brendan Gleeson's police inspector is well-served by the writer: central to the brutally repressive treatment of the Suffragettes, he is allowed a moment of doubt towards the end. Ben Whishaw seems uncomfortable in the challenging role of Maud's husband, totally intolerant her involvement with the Movement.

This is, in the fullest possible sense, a Women's Picture, written and directed (Sarah Gavron) by women, and it is the women who make it work and make it pull at your heartstrings. Bonham-Carter, Anne-Marie Duff and Romola Garai give telling performances. Carey Mulligan, who somehow didn't seem to get the period right in the remake of FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD, is at her absolute best here, utterly convincing as an oppressed working mother reluctantly drawn into the campaign to give women fairer pay and a voice in the governance of the realm.

The Dickensian factory-sized laundry (a museum piece or a reconstruction?) is magnificently awful, and the teeming crowd scenes outside Parliament and at the fateful Epsom Derby suggest the production must have had a good budget (or some crafty CGI). There are moments of humour in the grim struggle, but this movie brings to life vividly and touchingly the high price paid by some women to obtain the right to vote for all women.

Biographical movies are always fascinating. If it is not something worthy, the movie would have not taken up the shape. It was a very good movie, and a very important historical subject. It has been 100 years since and now the world we live-in is much different and better. I think after thousands of years, now the women got their freedom.

I thought I knew this story very well, but it was 'Made in Dagenham' which is quite similar to this which is also based on the real. Both the stories take place 50 years apart, but this one was the beginning of a new era for women, not without sacrifices and sufferings.

Great actors, great actings, awesome storytelling, cinematography at its best, direction was amazing and the music was so pleasant, but the method of dealing was a bit gruesome, and sometimes brutal. I thought the terrorism is a new word, but this movie gives a different perspective and meaning to that.

You would definitely love this film if you respect women. All women cast movie, including the director, but for everyone. It might have begun in the UK, but the entire planet saw a drastic change and still taking place in some places. I don't see any reason why I should not recommend it to you.

8/10

It's 1912. Peaceful demonstrations have achieved little for suffrage in Britain. Suffragettes are resorting to vandalism. Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan) is a young mother working in a laundry for most of her life. She suffered under her lascivious boss Mr. Taylor. Co-worker Violet Miller recruits her into the movement. After testifying to Minister Lloyd George, the government still refuses to give the vote. Maud is beaten and arrested along with MP wife Alice Haughton (Romola Garai), Violet and Edith Ellyn (Helena Bonham Carter). Police inspector Steed (Brendan Gleeson) leads the effort to suppress the rebels. Suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst (Meryl Streep) urges the women to fight. After another arrest, Maud is thrown out by her husband Sonny Watts (Ben Whishaw) and by law, loses her rights to her own son.

One would expect an uplifting feel-good inspirational movie from the subject matter. The fact is that this is a dour, depressed telling of the struggle that is not simply marching and sit-ins. The violence is brutal but it's the overwhelming oppression that is even more brutal. The downtrodden acting by Carey Mulligan is superb. It is a movie of suffering and women with no choice but to rebel.