THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – WHY NOT
End of the 19th centurye century in a Danish village. Lise, the eldest of a Lutheran family, would like to emancipate herself from the weight of her family, while a dream she had seems to indicate a completely different destiny for her: in the middle of a field, the young girl contemplates a cloud threatening which spreads in red streaks. We will not know more for the moment, since this first feature film by Danish filmmaker Tea Lindeburg (who adapts an unknown novel by Marie Bregendahl) is tied, apart from two visions, to pure realism, playing the Lise’s future through her mother who, because she also had a dream, refuses to have a doctor come to assist her during this long and painful night when she gives birth.
A birth in pain that will give rise to the most gripping scene, where the torture of a woman switches into hallucinated horror. For the rest, with its 16 millimeters, the film suffers from being too applied, bogged down in its literalism and seeming to use a novel from 1920 to give it a look from today. In this “feminine story” which seems above all guided by the spirit of the times, it is difficult to find anything other than a pale litany on the weight of traditions and beliefs.
Danish film by Tea Lindeburg. With Flora Ofelia Hofmann Lindahl, Ida Cæcilie Rasmussen, Thure Lindhardt (1 h 26).