Antonia

Plot synopsis:
Following World War II, the widow Antonia and her daughter Danielle arrive at Antonia's home town where her mother is dying. Antonia turns down an offer of marriage from Farmer Bas, but develops a romance with him anyway. Danielle becomes an artist and expresses interest in raising a child, while rejecting the idea of having a husband. Antonia and Danielle visit the city to find a man to impregnate Danielle, resulting in the birth of Therèse, an unusually intelligent girl. Danielle also develops a lesbian relationship with Therèse's tutor.
Years later, Therèse is raped by a man named Pitte, who had earlier raped his mentally handicapped sister Deedee. Antonia places a curse on him, after which he is drowned. Therèse is unable to find her intellectual match but eventually has a relationship with a childhood friend, resulting in her pregnancy. She decides to keep the baby and gives birth to Sarah, the film's narrator. Antonia later dies of old age, in the company of friends and family.

Tags: avant garde, cruelty, murder, fantasy, revenge, flashback, philosophical, romantic, storytelling

Review:
It is a pleasure to be taken into this kind of world for the 100+ minutes of the film.I strongly disagree with the comments, which the IMDb is currently (as of March 13/04) displaying as being "representative," which states:"If you hold dear the innocence of children, respect God and those who serve Him, and hold dear what is beautiful in a spiritual sense, you will probably dislike this film."That's one seriously narrow-minded opinion the IMDb people have selected as being representative.
I never thought of it this way, but I suppose "Antonia's Line" is not for the polite, ultra-conservative, easily-offendable religious folks out there who, it seems, are more apt to feel threatened by fantastic stories like this than to appreciate them for what they are.
This film is not a picture of the real world, but, like a good fairy tale, provides one an opportunity to reflect on a variety of human conditions and experiences that everyone in some way can relate to.In this regard, "Antonia's Line" is a wonderfully rich and rewarding film, and a beautifully well-told story.It should not be dismissed so easily.
The many relationships portrayed in this movie, most loving, some not, are what give it life and give the lives of these characters its meaning.
The portrayal of women as independent and strong is definitely refreshing, but  those who claim this film makes a statement against religion and family aren't necessarily accurate.
Antonia has an opinion on everything, and smiles as she points out the colorful village characters to her cosmopolitan artist daughter who is amused by everyone from the town busy-bodies to the tradition of drunk men peeing on the church wall.
However, Antonia manages to carve out a place for herself by embracing love when she finds it, and opening her arms to the needy outcasts and oddballs that are victimized by cruel villagers.This film also offers a wonderfully refreshing depiction of love in all shapes and sizes-- connections between mentally handicapped loners, romance between women, elderly romance.
But I couldn't help but reflect that during the time span depicted in this movie--five generations in Holland during the twentieth century--Europe experienced some of the most horrific events known to humankind, two world wars, genocide, concentration camps, poison gas, fire bombings, political repression, and the death of millions of people.
"Antonia's Line" is a lovely, deeply moving fairy tale of four generations of strong, gentle women.
The scenes come one after the other, like paintings, time is flying and you feel its wings, the world dies and reborn with every day, technology takes place of the old things, churches become empty, people die, children are born, the fields get green and brown, but above all the table from the garden will be always full with people, because there, at the pink house, some people discovered that the miracle of life is life itself, is love and is acceptance..
Thought provoking and not as lots of people say 'sexist' because i think women have every right to present a point of view, especially though many in the world have been suppressed, subordinated for thousands of years.
My sense is that this film's director intended Antonia and her line of female descendants to represent strong, fearless heroines imbued with the fighting feminist spirit.
The film is only about 110 minutes long but feels much longer.I'm tired of the trend of thinking that propagates the belief that in order to be considered strong, women must prove that they can live entirely without men.
The movie "Antonia's Line" depicts a kind of feminist utopia: a "dynasty" of strong women who come along quite well without more than a minimal interference of males in their lifes.Nevertheless, the movie skillfully avoids every tendency towards dogmatic preaching in favor of the "good cause", and is in fact full of humor.Even a "male chauvinist pig" like Radlov could enjoy it..
This very fine little Dutch film mocks the old adage of 'You can't go back home again' by introducing Antonia and her daughter returning to a village she had abandoned and setting up changes among the odd assortment of townsfolk that initiate a heritage of both wonderful and tragic events, each of which is a parable about family and community.
And throughout the line grows as Antonia's extended family encompasses more and more endearing souls.I was hardly surprised when Antonia won a well-deserved Oscar for Best Foreign Film.Every time I see this film I find I do not tire of it, and every time I see it I come away feeling better..
In point of fact fatherless children have no end of problems throughout the world, and we hardly need more Murphy Brown sugarcoating of single motherhood.As I said, the movie is a delight to watch, and nearly all the characters are delightful.
Men will never like this movie.All the independent women in the movie are the ideals of most women, especially those who are repressed by patriarchy, tradition or religion.Antonia is a free woman who lives according to her own wish and belief after WWII upon returning to her own home town, a small village.
This well-made film is a politically correct fable in support of radical feminism.If you believe that a matriarchal culture will solve all our social ills; If you believe that men are only good for utilitarian purposes; If you believe that nothing good can be found in tradition;  If you believe that nothing good can be found in religion, and you want it all neatly presented in a pretty basket, tied up with a lacy bow, and decorated with colorful flowers.....then this movie is for you..
The Motion Picture Academy felt as strongly as I do, as they awarded it an Oscar; a well-deserved Oscar, I might add.It is about the progeny of Antonia (Willeke van Ammelrooy), a woman who returns to her village after WWII and begins life with her daughter Danielle (Els Dottermans).
Men are not bashed, but there is a sense that they are not very useful, except for producing more daughters.Danielle seeks a male to impregnate her and bears a child prodigy, Thérèse (Carolien Spoor, Esther Vriesendorp, and Veerle van Overloop), Thérèse becomes a pupil of the town intellectual Crooked Finger (Mil Seghers) and cannot find a man who can satisfy her intellectually and physically, so she settles for the physical and has a daughter of her own.Men in this movie serve as seed bearers, or teachers, or comfort bearers, or, in one case, messengers of evil, as one manages to rape two women.But the film is not just about feminism, it is also about acceptance.
Antonia and her daughter face joys, tragedies, and outrage while retaining an essential sense of self-regard and a core of strength.This movie is the antithesis of "the Hollywood movie": witness the sex scenes--one a pure definition of making _love_ as love is variously expressed, another depicting sex for convenience, another showing violence expressed as sex--none are lurid or extraneous to the story.
From that we go back to the past, to the moment she arrived back to her hometown with her daughter, and we see how they both grow old there, how their relationship with the other inhabitants develop and how they re-adapt to live in the countryside, in a very small village.The movie has hard moments, but also quite some funny ones, is quite smart and its characters are well developed.
If it seems like a small movie, it may be, but it will grow on the watcher pretty fast, as you will get involved in the life of Antonia and all those that surround her.
The 1995 winner of Best Foreign Language Film tells the story of a woman, her daughter and granddaughter over several years in the Netherlands.
This is the woman the politician's friend takes him to see on Mt. San Michelle; and by this procedure of comparing biographical cinema in the sciences better appreciate its span and gender specification through the traditional underdog in the stereotypically male dominated arenas of math and science.For one thing, the main character isn't portrayed as crazy or mentally ill; if that's important in establishing the sharp contrast repetitively marring American genre in this same category.
'Buyer beware.' Not to bother comparing it with the far inferior movie 'Proof', even in the biographical abundance that would have been available to structure a film about John Nash, "A Beautiful Mind", a wide ranging set of life experiences also caught up in Europe for an extended time, instead a hack biographer is selected to play up the crazy smear in order a distortion in film can be manufactured from that template.
The American audience is dismissed as childish enough to have those sorts of overt propaganda coercions foisted on them without comment or feedback, what are really unqualified abuses of portrayal, demeaning to education and educators and really amount to nothing more than the usual crass bullying of another intellectual that has come to supplant better film and literature development in this country domineered instead by 'Animal House' and high school movies trying to reduce our establishment to zoos and mockeries in terms of international standards.
"Antonia's Line" (also known as "Antonia") won the 1995 Oscar as the best foreign language film, and that's no small honor considering the number and quality of foreign language films now entering the U.S. It is an intergenerational story, played out mostly in a remote Dutch village, to which Antonia and her daughter return some time after the end of World War II.
Antonia's "line" is the list of women and girls who live with her, principally her daughter, her daughter's daughter (born out of wedlock after an intentional sexual encounter with a chosen male), the granddaughter (an intellectual genius from her earliest years) and the granddaughter's daughter (conceived from a relationship with a childhood companion she seems to have married, though that isn't absolutely clear).
Her next two films followed this path, and soon she was known as an interesting director to be taken seriously; although the extremism of her work and the heavy handed way she handled her subjects often diminished the true potential of her movies.
The five years between "The Last Island" and "Antonia" really payed off, as this movie received the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film in 1996."Antonia" is the story of well, Antonia (Willeke van Ammelrooy), a widow who returns to her home village after the World War II with her daughter Danielle (Els Dottermans), as she has received news that her mother is dying.
And so Antonia and Danielle's new life begins at the village and, as time goes by, we witness Antonia's line to grow and develop, meeting old friends, finding new friends, and of course, gaining new enemies.
At its core, it is the story of Antonia, her family, and her village, growing and developing from the 50s through the 80s, and the important events in their lives; but it's also way more complex than that.
Of course, being a Marleen Gorris' movie the relationships between male and female are of vital importance, but this time, extreme feminism is out and both genders are given a value (in an interesting change, Antonia herself must learn to love an accept a caring man).
It's a clever character driven story filled with a good sense of humor, and an intelligent humanist theme.As written above, "Antonia" also marks Gorris' evolution to more ambitious and complex films, as while the movie is entirely character driven, the whole setting and overall composition of the movie is wonderful.
An interesting touch is how different the movie becomes according to the characters' points of view: Antonia's scenes have a philosophical calm, while Danielle's world (as an artist) is quirky and suddenly surreal; contrasting sharply with her daughter Thérèse, who sees the world in a cold, distant and overtly scientific way.The many characters of the film are borough to life by an ensemble of both experienced and newcomer actors.
While everyone makes a good job, Marina De Graaf as Deedee and the Carolien Spoor as the young Thérèse are really highlights of the film that deserve to be noticed.With its remarkably well developed screenplay and the warm touch of Gorris' direction, "Antonia" is truly a step forward in the director's career and an improvement over her previous work.
The film is not a story of a person but of a village and a family.Like life, which would be incomplete without others (people) in your life, even this film would be incomplete without the various characters in the film and their bond with each other.
Because it is about the human condition, you probably have to be well over 21 to appreciate this movie.Antonia's line is filled with love and hate, poetry and crudity, life and death, good and bad, beautiful and ugly as life itself, all the ingredients of the human condition..
I left the movie house almost unaware the dialogue was subtitled, it was so smooth and effortless, and complemented the documentary feel and appearance of the film so well.I think Antonia's Line is one of the very best movies ever made.
And bad things too: two rapes, a murder, deaths.The key character is a woman so in control, so much a master of her world, so good and in tune with nature that she chooses what day to die.Its a tough call for those of us who do hold the values celebrated in this movie.
Heavily feministic, probably inspired by a desire for "less men and more women in the world" anti-establishment mentality, this film follows the life (beginning just after the end of World War 2) of Antonia, a woman who returns home to her small town for her mother's death...and just barely in time for that.
"Antonia's Line" follows the life of a robust, rural Dutch matron as it explores the village in which she lives, its sometimes eccentric inhabitants, their relationships, and the trials and triumphs they encounter as the film trudges and leaps gracefully through four generations.
Antonia's Line is one of the best movies that I've ever seen !!
The characters in this film infiltrate your life like characters from no other movie I've ever seen.
Watching Antonia's Line 20 years after it was made (and winning Best Oscar Foreign Film then), it still has its quirky 'life-is-full-of-the-unexpected' charm reminiscent of 'new wave' movies of the 90s, though it does feel dated now.
Antonia tells everyone that this is the last day of her life and she tells her story in flashbacks, starting with her arrival at the family farm with her daughter Danielle, and her intention of raising her as a single mother.
She actually was the first woman to direct a movie that won an Oscar for best foreign film.
Beautiful film, about love, life and death.
The women are the strongest characters in this film which is also about the Life and Times of one particular - and peculiar - woman, Antonia, and her clan.
Well, I may be Dutch, but I am not a particular fan of Dutch movies, as they can be incredibly predictable, and also Dutch male directors/producers/writers seem to think that the best thing to come out of women's lib is that they can display even more titties in a film (think of Paul Verhoeven, a great director, really, but oh so obsessed with the female body and anything randy and horny...).
When I saw this movie the first time at the age of 16, I felt like I've seen one of the best movies ever; It was a small glance in a beautiful world, contending characters that I liked very much, within a story that I wanted to be part of.
The film chronicles her life and family chain, revealing the great humanitarian soul Antonia passes down to her Great Grand Daughter.
This film, "Antonia's Line" needs to be required viewing by all.
my only problem with this film is that it doesn't show much in the way of internal conflict within what Antonia sets up as basically a commune or extended family unit.
I was so appalled by this film the first time I saw it, that I made myself watch the first 42 minutes of it again a few days later before I would commit myself to judging it.I was even more disgusted the second time, and came away convinced that this film accomplishes a kind of tour-de-force in succeeding in being both cute and extremely mean-spirited at the same time.(MILD SPOILER FOLLOWS) The only likable characters in the film are either mentally retarded, suicidal, or, at best, weak-willed and submissive to the smugly arrogant Antonia and her daughter Danielle--two women apparently incapable of human love but adept at domination and manipulation.
This story has a woman named Antonia (Willeke Van Ammelrooy) who along with her daughter Danielle (Els Dottermans) come back to her Dutch village after the war to bury her dead mother.
After that she stays and along the course of time different people come to live with them as it becomes a sort of commune run by Antonia.
The make-up is superb and towards the end of the film we see Antonia when she was younger and then a second later as she is as an 80 year old woman.
Antonia's line is horribly contrived with so much narration it doesn't allow you to think...there's no foreshadowing, connected plot, growing relationships...it's just a movie where stuff happens.All the characters are flat and boring, from the beginning apparently we should have seen this coming ( as they killed off the Mother who seemed to have some issues in about 5 minutes.)There's no feeling and comedy?
The real objective of feminism is for men and women to share power, not make females the sole power.Antonia's Line (a title that makes more sense than the original title of Antonia, because it better captures the focus of the movie), is a fine film that includes colourful, interesting characters, some funny moments and some compelling drama.