Die Gottliche Ordnung (2017)

Directed by: Petra Biondina Volpe | 96 minutes | comedy, drama | Actors: Marie Leuenberger, Maximilian Simonischek, Rachel Braunschweig, Sibylle Brunner, Marta Zoffoli, Bettina Stucky, Noe Krejcí, Finn Sutter, Peter Freiburghaus, Therese Affolter, Ella Rumpf, Nicholas Ofczarek, Sofia Helin, Elias Arens, Mirjam Zvangen, Marietta Jemmi Kristin Flückiger, Urs Bosshardt, Fabienne Hadorn, Sandra Utzinger, Steffi Friis

In New Zealand they already had it in 1893, in Germany in 1918, in the Netherlands in 1919, in the United States in 1920 and in the United Kingdom in 1928: women’s suffrage equal to that of men. Countries such as Spain (1931), Turkey (1933), Brazil (1934), Japan (1945) and China (1947) followed. Remarkably, in Switzerland it took until 1971 for women to have the right to vote in national elections. Even more shocking are the facts that equal rights for men and women were not included in the constitution of the Alpine country until 1981 and that it was not until 1990 that the last canton (Appenzell Innerrhoden) gave women the right to make their voices heard on both local and national issues. federal issues. In the mountainous areas, life seemed to stand still for years, so the women there don’t get much of the emancipation movement that was going on in other parts of the world in the decades before. The film ‘Die göttliche Ordnung’ (2017) by director Petra Volpe – the Swiss entry for the Oscar for best non-English language film, which incidentally did not make the ‘shortlist’ – revolves around the women from the mountain villages, who slowly awaken and finally realize that the age of centuries-long patriarchal oppression is really over.

Nora Ruckstuhl (Marie Leuenberger) is a good housewife who fills her days with taking care of the household, her husband Hans (Max Simonischek), their two sons and her arch-conservative father-in-law (Peter Freiburghaus). Doing something else with her life has never occurred to her, because when you are born as a girl in a mountain village like this, the route you will walk in your life is already predetermined: their only right is the kitchen sink. When Hans comes home with the good news that he has been promoted at work, Nora only thinks about the vacancy she read in the newspaper; how she would love to go to work herself! But when she puts this to Hans, he forbids her to apply (Swiss law at that time allowed men to make decisions for their wives). “I’ll make you pregnant again, so you won’t be bored”, he shouts to silence her. But when Hanna (Ella Rumpf), the rebellious teenage daughter of Nora’s sister Theresa (Rachel Braunschweig), runs away from home to be with her long-haired, motorcycle-riding boyfriend only to be locked up by her parents in an asylum for unruly children, Nora becomes made me think again. She grows tired of the fact that women’s wishes are ignored, reviled or punished and is inspired by the protests organized by women in the cities of Zurich and Bern. Thanks to the support of the elder Vroni (Sybille Brunner), who had stuck her neck in vain for equal treatment twelve years earlier, and the free-spirited Italian immigrant Graziella (Marta Zoffoli), she starts a campaign to put women’s suffrage on the map in her village as well. . Since it is the men who must vote in favor of women’s suffrage, they decide to give up their work in the household, in order to finally make the men realize the usefulness of their business.

‘Die göttliche Ordnung’ was a great success in its own country, with an impressive box office revenue of almost five million dollars by Swiss standards. Of course that also has to do with the fact that an important event in Swiss history has been cut into bite-sized chunks that go into it like sweet cake, but this film is also entertaining for people who have nothing to do with Switzerland. This is mainly due to the captivating characters. Nora has more to offer and is more complex than you might think at first glance. Her transformation from colorless housewife to progressive feminist is quite predictable, but thanks to Marie Leuenberger’s warm interpretation you can see right through it. She allows herself to be surrounded by women who are close to your heart and who are each in their own way victims of the oppression that women have had to endure for years. What Volpe, who also wrote the screenplay, also does strongly is add nuance to the attitude of the men. It’s easy to paint them as the bad guys – and a few are really bad – but Volpe chooses to underline that their opposition to equal rights stems mainly from ignorance and fear of change. In addition, there is also a prominent woman who is against women’s suffrage. This Charlotte Wipf (Therese Affolter), who as a prominent village resident (because Hans’s employer) should have played a pioneering role, hides behind the Bible, which is said to preach a certain ‘order’ between man and woman – hence the title of the movie. Wipf is an ambivalent and therefore interesting character on paper, who, however, does not fully come into his own and therefore gets stuck in clichés.

Volpe does not shy away from clichés anyway, because in order to give the sexual liberation of women a place in her film, she sends Nora, Vroni, Theresa and Graziella in Zurich (where they had just participated in a protest march) to a workshop by a Swedish actress and recognized feminist – Sofia Helin played ‘Yoni Master’. There they go into a hilarious scene with mirrors and Nora discovers that she has a ‘tiger between her legs’. And the fact that the women also face the necessary drama (domestic violence, a death) is also not surprising, just like songs like ‘You Don’t Own Me’ (Leslie Gore) and ‘Respect’ (Aretha Franklin) that fill the soundtrack. . ‘Die göttliche Ordnung’ follows the well-known paths and has a known outcome, because that is in the history books. So it is all predictable, but certainly also entertaining thanks to the excellent acting, engaging characters and a well-balanced script despite its light-heartedness.