The abortion issue has become hot again.

In both the United States and parts of Europe, many people want to restrict the right to abortion.

French Circumstances, which is based on the author Annie Ernaux's autobiographical novel, is in other words very relevant.

Although it takes place in a conservative Catholic 1960s.

The film won the Golden Lion in Venice but is not really a masterpiece, instead a fairly simple story without dramaturgical frills.

Sometimes simple is the best.

And the forward movement is constant.

Just like with the determined Anne who gets pregnant after her first bed, but absolutely does not want to keep the fetus.

She understands that a child would force her to give up her dreams of education and a future beyond the stove and laundry.

Abortion at another time

Anne has her friends in ours and dry, they share both chewing gum and secrets with each other but in the Christian school they go to, the word abortion is as unmentionable as Ni-vem-vems name in Harry Potter.

Anne is completely alone in her vulnerable situation, turns to doctors she hopes can see between her fingers, takes natural medicine and performs her own, highly painful experiments.

In the pot lies disgrace, expulsion - and imprisonment.

That being said, Circumstances is not a fundamentalist flag-winger for pro-choice.

Filmmakers Audrey Diwan and Marcia Romano do not take the situation lightly, seeing its complexity - but of course, they still defend the woman's right to decide over her own body. 

An intense and exciting film

And it's exciting.

The film counts the number of weeks against the inevitable in the same way that a Bond film counts down the seconds until the bomb explodes and destroys the earth.

In Anne's case, her whole existence.

It is an intense creation that sucks us into Anne's perspective, partly through a nervous spectacle, partly through very many close-ups with extremely short depth of field, which enhances the feeling of her isolation - and there towards the end when… nä, more should of course not be revealed but it is a scene that balances on the fragile thread of life - and it is a sequence that can probably be adopted by both pro choice and pro life.

But for different reasons.

Abortion on the white canvas: "Is there a certain fear of touch"

The film and television industry is generally quite conservative on this issue.

You can almost talk about a fear of touch.

In the stories where there is a conflict regarding whether a young woman should have an abortion or not, it basically always ends with her having the baby.

Not only in the comparatively conservative USA, also recently in the Norwegian Ninja Baby, in the Swedish series Vår tid är nu, in the credible Girls, und so weiter in eternity.



But change seems to be underway.

With this film, with Celine Sciammas rightfully praised Portrait of a Woman on Fire (2019) and some others that are on the way, like the 70's portrayal Call Jane.

Which can probably be seen as a natural consequence of the fact that women have begun to take an increasing place in the script and directing guild.

And the fact that the abortion issue has become hot again.