One review on 14 Jan 2024

France 2021

Running time: 100 mins

Happening

L'événement

Director : Audrey Diwan 

Setting: France
Original language: French
Summary: Student has to deal with unwanted pregnancy in 1963 France where abortion means a jail sentence for anyone involved.


Cast:

  • Anamaria Vartolomei  Anne

Crew:


Aspect Ratio: 1.37 (Academy)

Colour: Colour

Sound: Stereo

Camera: Digital


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First Seen: Sun 14th Jan 2024
Catalogued: 16th Jan 2024

Synopsis

Based on a novel telling the writer's own experiences - so a true fiction. Anne is 23 and lives in a female student hostel at the Uni in Angouleme. We don't see how she got pregnant but the doctor confirms it quite earl and she is adamant that she wants to end it. She then has to try and find someone to help her. Even her close friends are terrified of being sent to jail for helping her (which was the law then in France). We do meet the father - a student at a different Uni, like Anne a high fler academically, but he is no help.

Eventuall she gets a contact of a woman who will do the deed = but the first attempt fails and the second causes problems which end up with her being carted off to hospital. As she is drifting in and out of consciousness on the stretcher trolley in the hospital she hears the nurse ask the doctor "what shall I write it as?" and the doctor replies "miscarriage" - had he said "abortion" that would have meant jail. The film ends with her going in to take her final exams.  

Since the author ended up as a professor of literature we can assume that she passed ok.

Reviews

by rogerco on Sun 14th Jan 2024 DVD proj @ home (Subtitled)

She was lucky, society was sick

Full review

Convincing slice of life for a female student in early 60's France (outside Paris). Scenes of the back street abortion troubling.