Rating: 
Summary: Worth A Watch.
Review: Antonia's Line wasn't a bad film. To my knowledge, the only other Dutch film I've seen besides this would be Soldier of Orange with Rutger Hauer--that's also a pretty good movie. One thing I enjoy about European films like Antonia's Line would be the fact that they're not afraid to do things differently. This movie deals with a lady (along with her daughter) who comes back to her hometown after being away for some time. I won't say anything else about the plot besides that. The acting in this film is better-than-good. The cinematography is also quite nice. This movie is worth a watch.
Rating: 
Summary: A celebration of life and bloodline
Review: As ANTONIA'S LINE begins, we watch an elderly Antonia (Willeke van Ammelrooy) awaken in the morning and decide that, before the day is out, she'll gather her family around her bed, and die. Is she desperately ill? Not apparently. But she's lived life to the full, and now it's time to exit. She rises to begin her last day like any other, gazes out the window, and her life flashbacks for the audience.Shortly after the end of World War II, single-mother Antonia returns to the small, Dutch village of her birth with her teenage daughter, Danielle (Els Dottermans). They arrive just in time to attend the death of Antonia's own widowed mother. Afterwards, mother and daughter take over the family farm, and begin to assimilate into village life. Generation follows generation. Antonia founds a matriarchy, and heads an extended family of neighbors, who periodically gather around her outdoor table for a home-cooked meal to celebrate existence. ANTONIA'S LINE is an earthy, mostly gentle, and occasionally eccentric salute to life - alternately humorous, sad, happy, tragic, dramatic, and poignant. It wouldn't have worked had the setting been urban. And there's a plethora of interesting characters. The Mad Madonna, a woman who howls at the full moon from her second-floor town apartment, and the man downstairs, a Protestant, who's prevented from declaring his adoration for her because she's a Catholic. Deedee, the mentally challenged and sexually abused daughter of a local family who seeks refuge with Antonia, and Loony Lips, the village idiot that loves her. The nihilist Crooked Finger (Mil Seghers), who never goes outside his dwelling, but is Therese's brilliant philosopher-tutor. Boer Bas (Jan Declair), the lonely widower farmer who craves Antonia's companionship. Viewers born and raised in the U.S. may find the film's eminently practical treatment of sex, sin, crime, punishment, and religion startling. This is, after all, a Dutch production. Antonia barely bats an eye when Danielle tells her that she wants a child, but not the man that goes with it. Off the two go to the Big City to find a suitable stud muffin, who ultimately plants the seed during an afternoon's hotel tryst while an imperturbable Antonia waits outside. Meanwhile, the village knows all, takes care of its own, and keeps to itself. It's Antonia around whom everybody else revolves in this pastoral soap opera. Van Ammelrooy is delightful, and the Make-Up Department does a superb job "aging" Antonia from her 30s to 80s. Dottermans has a slightly off-kilter visage that helps to make her Danielle immensely sympathetic. All performances are flawless. My only objection to the plot was the starting point, which was that Antonia found it appropriate and timely to die for no good reason that was explainable. She was in apparent good health, and anchored the support network on whom so many depended. Her leaving almost seemed selfish. However, that said, it's a good trick if you can manage it. The ultimate Quit when you're ahead.
Rating:
Summary: Well Done but Too Polemic at Times
Review: As many reviewers have already pointed out, Antonia's Line is a film that celebrates women, their power and independence, their healthy condition that they enjoy when they are free from men, their superior spirituality to the male gender. Upon a second viewing, I found the film a bit annoying, painting women as smug earth mothers, and men as testosterone-deranged crackpots who must be kept at a distance. Thus one women "allows" a man to impregnate her but, deeming him an unnecessary presence, wants to raise her child on her own. The only men that are looked at with kindness in this film are emasculated neurotics, professorial, melancholy eunuchs, and the like. The polarity between women as spiritual earth mothers and men as troglodytes is a grotesque oversimplification and impedes the film's noble attempt to question male-dominant roles and how those roles have subjectated women.
Rating: 
Summary: just a plain ol' good movie
Review: Don't get too bogged down trying to figure out what it means that this film is a "postmodernistic depiction of stark Flemish neo-realism," etc., etc. The bottom line is that this is just a really fine movie. It is smart, funny, wonderfully acted, and often beautifully shot. The world created in "Antonia's Line" is offbeat, whimsical, and charming. There is a sense that life in this film is profoundly just and always accepting and full of love for others. I wish the real world was like this movie! As soon as I finished it, I wanted to watch it again or something else like it - unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any other film that is quite like it.
Rating:
Summary: HERMOSA PELICULA (BEAUTIFULL MOVIE)
Review: Esta es una de las películas más hermosas que he visto. Habla del amor a la vida y del respeto por las diferentes formas de amar. ¡No dudes en comprarla, es una verdadera obra de arte!
Rating: 
Summary: Feminist Fantasy
Review: European trash are not interesting enough for a two hour movie. The characters are all cliche's of village life. The bad guy is a blond (facist) rapist. He rapes his sister and a little girl. He comes back to town in a military uniform. The good people in this movie are all Lefty lesbians and tough grandmothers. This movie is a feminist fantasy of the European variety. The men are stupid and the women are brilliant. The only smart man in the film commits suicide.
Rating:
Summary: Feminist Fantasy
Review: European trash are not interesting enough for a two hour movie. The characters are all cliche's of village life. The bad guy is a blond (facist) rapist. He rapes his sister and a little girl. He comes back to town in a military uniform. The good people in this movie are all Lefty lesbians and tough grandmothers. This movie is a feminist fantasy of the European variety. The men are stupid and the women are brilliant. The only smart man in the film commits suicide.
Rating:
Summary: Charming
Review: Finally, a picture that won the foreign films Oscar that deserved it! Beautifully filmed and a story line which quickly engages the viewer. Antonia is the epitome of women- strong, loving, generous to her friends, and merciful to the less fortunate as well as unconventional, comedic,and a temper to boot. A wonderful fim.
Rating: 
Summary: Oh so plastic
Review: For those who enjoy tired platitutdes and pathetic ironies, this is your movie! By the end of the droning, the key characters pretty much kill themselves off. Apparently, they couldn't take it either.
Rating:
Summary: I NEVER LIKED DUTCH MOVIES TILL NOW
Review: Here we have a brilliantly constructed film about womans ruin. I can safely say that this film never had any disregard for the viewer. It maintains pace and story and some real off the wall acting. Antonia's Line is a film that leaves you in shock after watching it. I really think its a great film. Antonia's Line is Captivating.
|
