Antonia’s Line

Antonia’s Line

“Antonia’s Line” takes its colors from a variety of cultures and mixes them in the same pot. They ought to come out mud-colored, but the rainbow persists.

The movie features Latin American magic realism, grim European philosophies of death, the day to day realities of country life, a sunny feminism, plenty of easygoing sex and an array of unforgettable characters. By the time the film is over you feel you could walk down its village streets and greet everyone by name.

Just nominated for the foreign-film Oscar, it tells the story of a matriarchy founded by Antonia (Willeke van Ammelrooy), who comes back to her Dutch village after World War II. She and her daughter have returned to bury her ancient mother. But this is no ordinary funeral; mom sits up in her coffin to sing “My Blue Heaven,” and a statue of Jesus smiles. Later an angel in the churchyard uses its wing to smite a priest who refused last rites to a man who sheltered Jews from the Nazis.

Antonia greets such old friends as Russian Olga (who runs the cafe and also is an undertaker and midwife), Crooked Finger (who lives in one room with his books and bitterly insists on life’s futility) and Mad Madonna, who utters wild goat cries at the moon because, being Catholic, she can’t marry her Protestant lover.

There also is Farmer Bas, who comes courting one day with his five sons and makes what might be called a proposal centering largely on their need for a mother. Antonia finds this less than overwhelming but invites him to come over from time to time to do chores around which she will pay him with hot breakfasts and cups of tea. “I can get those at home,” he observes, but he comes anyway, eventually causing Antonia to tell him: “You can’t have my hand but you can have the rest.” They agree that once a week is enough. Antonia doesn’t want “all that confusion” in her house, or his, and so they build a little cottage for their meetings.

And so it goes. In fact, the narrator of “Antonia’s Line,” Antonia’s great-granddaughter, is very fond of reminding us that so it goes; the movie is punctuated with moments in which we are assured that season followed season, and crops were planted and harvested, and life went on, and not much changed. e.e. cummings’ poem “anyone lived in a pretty how town” comes to mind; it has the same sad romantic elegiac pastoral tone.

Generation follows generation. Antonia’s daughter, who wants a child but no husband, auditions candidates for fatherhood.

Local matches are made: Loony Lips meets DeeDee, who are both retarded; they find happiness together. So does the village priest, who one day flings his cassock into the air shouts “I’m free!” settles down and produces a dozen or so children. There are dark days; two of them involve rape but direct measures are taken by the women: One miscreant is punctured by a pitchfork and another receives Antonia’s curse.

What remains in our minds most clearly is the expansiveness of Antonia’s family, her children and grandchildren and adopted sons and daughters-in-law and cousins from Bohemia, neighbors, friends even strangers who fill all the chairs at her long long table. And they all learn one rule only: to look for the best in people and not to mind if they find it wearing well or happy without having to bother anybody much.

A theme that runs through this film like a prayer is personified by Crooked Finger (Mil Seghers), who is called that because he always has a finger marking his place in a book. He is Therese’s teacher, but his room is lined with the philosophers who have convinced him that life is meaningless, death final, hope pointless, God dead.

Antonia does not argue with Crooked Finger nor do any of the others. They listen respectfully but with no approval. They are not pious in any conventional sense; however you can count on seeing them every Sunday morning at mass because church provides yet another opportunity for communal gathering a spiritual version of their regular dinners together.

By the end of “Antonia” we have traveled 50 years through recent history: trends and fashions (each car we see in town looks newer than the last) and issues and events none of which matter so much as what Antonia represents. Willeke van Ammelrooy plays Antonia, as she grows from about 30 into her 80s and she does it convincingly; she is plumpish throughout; in Hollywood they’d say she’s fat but what we know is that she’s healthy.

The film puts us into a very particular mood: We hear stories that are sometimes as impenetrable as miracles but more often earthy as chickenshit underfoot. Underneath runs a philosophy insisting on itself. Marleen Gorris believes women have common sense built in and therefore a better understanding of how things work if only they were allowed to run them, she seems to say, this world would right its wrongs and start making sense again. I hope she’s right; but even if she isn’t, I’m glad her movie made me feel so good about things.

In one of the opening scenes Antonia is walking through town with her daughter when we see a sign on the wall: “Welcome to our Liberators!” which is meant for the Americans but may as well be addressed to women.

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