Review of Women Talking (2022) by Mauro_Lanari — 19 May 2023

(Mauro Lanari).

Feminist consciousness-raising group in a barn. In 2010 they are not fighting patriarchy but a masculinity that is more toxic than ever: slaves of narcotizers, rapists, aggressors who forbid them the right to vote and education. While in the West family law has admitted certain victimistic excesses and is rebalancing, Towes, Polley and McDormand (here also producer with Pitt) can either speak of the Canadian writer's personal experience or of the Taliban regime or of a colony bigots in Bolivia, instead they criminalize the entire male universe (August, the only actor in the feature length, is played by the gay Ben Whishaw). The movie is so biased that it makes the illiterate protagonists of the highest systems dialogue. More indisposing than provocative, it has been compared to "Dogville" (2003) where, on the contrary, Trier knew how to deal with much more universal issues than #metoo. Losing all sense of proportion, this cinema condemns itself to ridicule: at the end of 2022, the ten-year poll by "Sight and Sound" elected for the first time as the best film in history "Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Brussels" (Chantal Akerman 1975), and there was no lack of harsh criticism.