The Woman

[jonbly]

8/10 - Best of the Ketchum adaptations to date. Struggling to believe in some of the characters as usual, though.

[Meanbobs]

I loved almost everything about this film. Definitely the best of ff2011 so far. Fantastic performances from the entire cast and a thoroughly riveting arc. I'll have to revisit some of LM's previous films. Lead actress was outstanding. This is the caliber of movie that I come to FF to enjoy!

Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk

[brad1000]

This movie was a suprise for me in the way the director has matured.He has always been on my radar but i feel he has upped his game with this picture and is now punching at a much higher weight.Subtle and clever direction and a tangible ability to work his cast members aligned with a rare talant to exploit and entertain at the same time.

Rumley...Wheatley...Green and West...its your move now.

xxxxx

peace

[Uzumaki]

8/10 - Best of the Ketchum adaptations to date. Struggling to believe in some of the characters as usual, though.

Yeah, that was my issue with it, just didn't believe the main guy and the son. Liked it though and the Woman was amazing

[brad1000]

if the woman had fallen into the clutches of such a disfunctional family unit...thats what would have happened..the fact the caracters were unbelievable just hightened the drama

[Pumpkin]

I love The Woman and it's fab to finally be able to talk about it with people! And how good does Pollyanna scrub up?

[Wolfshade]

As Jack Ketchum adaptions go, I preferred it to the awful Girl Next Door, but I thought The Lost was better than this.

It built up very well and got slowly more and more disturbing, but I think it lost it a bit at the end, the father figure had been very controlled with his domination and abuse of the wife, but the way he suddenly attacks and kills the school teacher as soon a he senses the slightest tension didn't seem believable, also the chained up "dog girl" in the garage was just bizarre and didn't really work. Extremely surreal ending to the film, whole thing left me a bit "ummmm?", probably a film you need to watch more than once to fully appreciate, but I doubt I'll give it a second time.

[Jekyll]

I thought this was the best thing I saw by a long distance this year.

[The Aylmer]

Yup, this was my favourite film of the whole weekend as well. The main characters were presented as extremes of their kind (the abusive father who wouldn't think twice about beating up and killing a visiting teacher, the 'woman' herself as pure feral rage) but as the whole thing was a metaphor for abusive behaviour towards women generally then I found it all worked perfectly. I had an excitable discussion outside afterwards with a chap who hated it, saying it was his worst film of the festival (sorry, for me that has to be 'Vile') which is fair enough. That's his opinion so I wouldn't dream of trying to change it. But he backed his view up by adding it was a 'message' movie (which it is) and the message it was putting out (that abuse towards women is wrong) was so obvious that it didn't need stating or turning into a movie like The Woman. I have to disagree here. In that case surely all 'message' movies are pointless as they all have fairly obvious points to make... i.e. war is hell, polluting the environment is bad, power corrupts etc. Doesn't stop the likes of Apocalypse Now, The Emerald Forest or All The Presidents Men from being classics of their kind. 'The Woman' is as powerful as any of those movies in it's own way, irrespective of the obviousness of the underlying theme. I loved it.

[The Soapmaker]

I didn't find the "message" of the film particularly powerful.... I also couldn't really see why anyone would regard it as especially controversial or misogynistic. I don't think it's making any kind of point about men or women in general, it's just a story portraying a very particular group of (fictional) characters and (fairly unlikely) events. It's pretty obvious that the only "monsters" on display here are both male, and they're certainly not portrayed as sympathetic characters in any way.

I found The Girl Next Door more disturbing - and unpleasant - because it showed a much larger group of people being aware of, and observing, abuse.... and doing nothing about it.

"Controversy" apart, I think as a film The Woman is a highly impressive piece of work.

[brad1000]

As Jack Ketchum adaptions go, I preferred it to the awful Girl Next Door, but I thought The Lost was better than this.

It built up very well and got slowly more and more disturbing, but I think it lost it a bit at the end, the father figure had been very controlled with his domination and abuse of the wife, but the way he suddenly attacks and kills the school teacher as soon a he senses the slightest tension didn't seem believable, also the chained up "dog girl" in the garage was just bizarre and didn't really work. Extremely surreal ending to the film, whole thing left me a bit "ummmm?", probably a film you need to watch more than once to fully appreciate, but I doubt I'll give it a second time.

i have to disagree here. He did not just suddenly attack the teacher. you have to take into account that his wife had just stood up to him for the first time and said she was leaving and finding out he had impregnated his own daughter was a final straw moment ...hardly "the slightest tension". the previous wife beating is what unhinged him.....he starts acting really crazy from that moment on as he realises everything is crumbling around him.I thought the ending was superb as the woman takes the little sister because she knows the older girl is pregnant and thus judges the situation from a feral perspective in terms of litter size.

[saggs]

Best film of the weekend for me! never was 100% where it was going or where it would stop.

[jimmie_mac]

my fav too

[The Aylmer]

I didn't find the "message" of the film particularly powerful.... I also couldn't really see why anyone would regard it as especially controversial or misogynistic. I don't think it's making any kind of point about men or women in general, it's just a story portraying a very particular group of (fictional) characters and (fairly unlikely) events. It's pretty obvious that the only "monsters" on display here are both male, and they're certainly not portrayed as sympathetic characters in any way.

I found The Girl Next Door more disturbing - and unpleasant - because it showed a much larger group of people being aware of, and observing, abuse.... and doing nothing about it.

"Controversy" apart, I think as a film The Woman is a highly impressive piece of work.

I'd agree with most of that. The 'message' on its own isn't that powerful. Indeed, as the guy I was talking to outside the Empire kept saying, it's pretty obvious. But the way the movie goes about delivering its message, obvious or not, certainly does carry some weight, so there's certainly a power to the film as a whole (which is what I was trying to imply originally)

And no, I can't see why some people think the movie is misogynistic either. Two of the characters certainly are but the film never condones their actions. It doesn't condone the poor mothers reluctant silence either (even though she's forced into making a stand at the end) which is why she ultimately pays for it with her life.

The Girl Next Door is also more disturbing for another reason, that being the story has some basis in fact, albeit changing the setting from the 60's to the 50's to heighten the overall effect on the viewer. It's more believable as a result whereas The Woman seems to deal with characters at the more extreme end of the social spectrum, representing an amalgamation of the worst traits of human behaviour. Considering it starts with a feral woman who has been raised by wolves running around the forest, presumably unaware of the 'civilised' world beyond, it's certainly more of a fantasy horror tale than a realistic look at female abuse in the home. But that just made it work all the better in this instance for me.

However you approach the movie, as you say, it's a highly impressive piece of work.

[morralex]

people have been saying that the dog girl bit at the end was a bit silly. however, this is the most important part of the film. any attempt to try and decipher some kind of message about misogyny or violence against women from this film is fairly futile, it is not an original idea and attributing a message like that makes the film seem far too obvious and lacking seriousness. i think it posits an idea about 'states', that everything is fluid and fluctuating and that this is a quality that the world, human interaction and communication all possess. the women was once born of a human but was bough up by wolves and is now content and happy as being 'non-human' and 'uncivilised'; the dog girl thing was once part of the family but at the end is treated as a dog by the woman and that is ok and the best thing for her because she has changed and no longer occupies a state of humanity. that part was the most important part of the film because it hammered home that idea.

a very interesting and though provoking film that is still occupying a lot of my thinking time.