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A14 PEOPLE / ARTS
Thursday 22 december 2022

Sarah Polley’s ‘Women Talking’ is a revelation

By LINDSEY BAHR and girls. They used cow
AP Film Writer tranquilizers on their victims
What happens when your who had little to no memo-
home no longer feels like ry of the incidents.
a home? When the rules Polley’s version is expres-
of your life no longer make sionistic and lyrical, biting
sense? When your body and poetic. The conversa-
is not your own? When tions are messy, the femi-
your children are not safe nism contradictory and
and neither are you? Do the trauma complicated.
you look for justice? Re- Among the grandmoth-
venge? Apologies? Do you ers (Frances McDormand,
make amends to keep the Sheila McCarthy, Judith
peace? Or do you search Ivey) there are those who
for something else? Some- have lived with these un-
thing unknown, something spoken truths for so long
new? that abandoning the end
For a crime as old as sexual goal, the kingdom of heav-
assault, we still struggle to en, is simply not an option.
find the language to talk There are some who are
about it. No matter how open to a conversation
enlightened we’re sup- and see a light. One tells al-
posed to have become legorical stories about her
about these things, there is This image released by United Artists shows Rooney Mara, from left,, Claire Foy, Judith Ivey, Sheila horses Ruth and Cheryl.
so much silence, so much McCarthy, Michelle McLeod and Jessie Buckley in a scene from “Women Talking.” The younger mothers are
shame, so much anger that Associated Press different too. Jessie Buck-
just hangs in the air. Isn’t it alleges assaulted her when bruises, blood and babies events in which three gen- ley’s Mariche is full of bitter-
kind of sad, in a way, that she was 16, was found not and a trauma so deep, so erations of women have ness and nowhere to chan-
the only words we’ve col- guilty. The other women intractable that they no 24 hours to decide what to nel it.
lectively agreed upon are who claimed assaults pub- longer feel like themselves. do before they return, de- Claire Foy’s Salome is
“me too?” licly were deemed unreli- This isn’t helped by their manding forgiveness. Their bubbling over with rage.
Sarah Polley knows the able narrators, their memo- faith, and the elders in their three options as they see Her four-year-old was as-
terrible truth about sexual ries imperfect. isolated religious colony it are 1) do nothing, 2) stay saulted and she wants to
assault and the criminal And so, for her extraordi- who tell them that it was and fight, or 3) leave. So, kill. Rooney Mara’s Ona,
and civil justice system: nary film “ Women Talking ghosts or Satan who did they talk. newly pregnant from an
That there are no perfect “ she approaches this so- it, that they’re lying to get The film is an adaptation assault, is serious but ro-
victims. In her book “ Run cietal, cultural conundrum attention, or that it was an of a 2018 book by Miriam mantic, looking at things as
Towards the Danger “ from a different angle and act of wild female imagina- Toews, which was itself in- a poet might, from a kind
she writes about how she in doing so makes the con- tion. spired by a real story out of of ivory tower she’s con-
watched it unravel from the versation undeniable. The But the film begins with an a Mennonite community in structed for herself, despite
sidelines, in horrified silence women in her film have no indisputable reality: One of Bolivia in which eight men the fact that none of the
at the advice of friends memory of the assaults at the attackers is caught and were convicted of rap- women have been taught
and lawyers, as a man she all. What they do have are this has led to a series of ing more than 100 women to read.q

‘Get Carter,’ ‘Flash Gordon’ director Mike Hodges

dies at 90

By JILL LAWLESS vice aboard a Royal Navy gritty northeast England lo- international cult following.
Associated Press minesweeper, visiting cations and jazz score, it’s Hodges’ 1985 sci-fi com-
LONDON (AP) — British film- poor coastal communities considered a British classic. edy “Morons from Outer
maker Mike Hodges, who around England. Caine also starred in Hodg- Space” was less success-
directed gangland thriller “For two years, my middle- es’ 1972 crime comedy ful. His 1980s films also in-
“Get Carter” and sci-fi cult class eyes were forced to “Pulp.” Hodges went on to cluded “A Prayer for the
classic “Flash Gordon,” has witness horrendous poverty direct 1974 sci-fi thriller “The Dying,” starring Mickey
died. He was 90. and deprivation that I was Terminal Man,” starring Rourke as a former IRA mili-
Hodges died at his home previously unaware of,” George Segal as a scien- tant, and “Black Rainbow”
in the county of Dorset in he wrote in a letter to The tist who turns violent after with Rosanna Arquette as a
southwest England on Sat- Guardian earlier this year. electrodes are implanted psychic medium targeted
urday, his friend and former The experience influenced in his brain. “Flash Gordon,” by a killer. British fimmaker Mike Hodges
producer Mike Kaplan told his feature debut, 1971 made amid the science fic- Hodges had a late-career is pictured in London on
British media on Wednes- thriller “Get Carter,” which tion deluge unleashed by success with 1998 drama April 26, 2004. Hodges, who
thriller
gangland
directed
day. No cause of death he wrote and directed. It the success of “Star Wars,” “Croupier,” which gave “Get Carter” and sci-fi cult
was given. starred Michael Caine as was released in 1980. A Clive Owen his internation- classic “Flash Gordon,” died
Born in the English port city a gangster who returns to campy romp inspired by al breakout role as a dealer at the age of 90, his friend his
of Bristol in 1932, Hodges his home city of Newcastle 1930s adventure comics, in a London casino. The film friend Mike Kaplan told British
trained as an accoun- on the trail of his brother’s pop music videos and ex- initially flopped in the U.K. media on Wednesday, Dec.
tant and did two years of killers. Remembered for its pressionist cinema, it was a but got rave reviews in the 21, 2022. Associated Press
compulsory military ser- unflinching violence, vividly hit in Britain and gained an U.S. and became a hit.q