Review by lobotomychic

I was frustrated by the lack of context. Despite the centrality of language as self-conscious, discourse, and deliberation, there is no clear sense of ground-breaking radicality given the lack of contrast and the absence of any emotional build-up. The movie throws us into a lively discussion where every woman is strikingly lucid, articulate, and speaks freely of her mind with unshakable conviction. This in itself is hard to square with their misguided view on religiosity and spirituality. The lack of context also undermines the merit of their discussion as showcasing ''the women's long-suppressed wisdom, their long-stifled self-consciousness, their hitherto-unrecognized eloquence, their self-creation.'' (Richard Brody, 2023) Their discussion undoubtedly oozes wisdom, self-consciousness, eloquence, and self-creation, perhaps too much so. But without context, this abundance of wisdom and eloquence, out of thin air, lacks emotional and intellectual gravity and moral seriousness.

The premise that these women must choose between survival and spirituality (Justin Chang, 2023) is unsound. These are not the options. Their understanding of religious piety and what constitutes reverence are based purely on the men's version, designed for brainwashing, intimidation, and control. The stakes are undoubtedly high, but the core of their struggle is for freedom, independence, agency, self respect, not survival. But the movie has little to say about what the choice really is between. What must the women leave behind were they to leave, and what makes it difficult for them to let go? What does it mean to love and care about one's abuser? Why is it terrifying to leave? What shaped their fear? And what does it mean to stay and fight, beyond choosing the certainty of a colony they know (but also hate)? The discussion of justice is also strikingly absent, though there is some superficial mentioning of forgiveness and how it must come spontaneously and with some distance. Does forgiveness render justice unnecessary? Why does leaving sound like a defeat? What makes it not defeat, or rather the opposite of defeat? Someone mentions that leaving is not fleeing, but the conversation ends there.

The gap between the particulars of their debate and the premise makes it rather unsatisfying and almost frivolous. The premise is life and death; their real choices are between the emotional certainty (and thus comfort) in continued conformity and subjection, AND self liberation through either violence or departure. The rich empowerment that lies in the third choice is phrased as choosing forgiveness over revenge, which entirely circumvent what I believe to be the most worthy theme, that is, the moral strength required of one in making the decision to leave.

Film critic Peter Bradshaw, while lamenting that "film's rather abstract conversation doesn't convey much in the way of urgency or specificity," concedes that "there is a sustained moral seriousness in Polley's work, a willingness to confront pain." Yet the movie is more evasive about the central struggle than taking it head on. I find myself in more agreement with Roger Ebert's Sheila O'Malley, who writes that "while the debate is fascinating in its particulars-and could be used as a model for debate practice-there's something rather formal in the result, betraying the artifice of the original source. The women in Bolivia were heroic for coming forward to testify against their rapists (men they knew) in court, and in so doing they broke with every tradition they knew. They put themselves 'beyond the pale' of their own conditioning and told their stories in front of the world. Their act took tremendous courage. Toews' made-up debate seems like an intellectual exercise in comparison." And sadly not even a rigorous or invigorating one.