Movies about War widow
1976 is a dead zone for WLW films. Válečná vdova is the only movie I can find from this year that has notable WLW content and isn’t porn. And I’m stretching my definition of what I include on the site just to have a film to represent 1976. Technically, Válečná vdova is a TV episode. It’s an episode of a series called Vize. Vize released stand-alone stories that ran approximately 90 minutes. So, it is basically a TV movie. Still, this technicality means I would’ve ignored Válečná vdova were it released in any year other than 1976.
Válečná vdova takes place during World War 1. Its focus is a wife and mother named Amy whose husband is away at war. Amy struggles with having any sort of fulfillment or happiness in her life. Then, she meets Jenny. Unlike most women at the time, Jenny has a job. She’s a photographer. Amy and Jenny become fast friends as Jenny offers variety and meaning to Amy’s life. Eventually, Jenny confesses her romantic feelings towards Amy. Amy then struggles with the choice between the known expectations of her as a wife and mother and a risky shot at genuine happiness.
Válečná vdova definitely looks like a TV movie. It lacks the grandeur of even cheap feature films from the 70’s. Actually, it almost feels like a stage play. There’s a few more locations than a standard play but all locations feature most action taking place in singular rooms. Really what I mean when I say it feels like a stage play is that you can very much tell that they shot all of this movie on a sound stage. Still, this isn’t a story that needed a lot of dressing up or exterior location shots. The priority here is a small, character-driven story. The dialogue is the focus of the film and shines regardless of the mediocre production design.
When I started the film, I wrote that it’s stuffy, repressed and inhibited. And that’s still true to an extent. But unlike something like Mezi dvěma ženami, there is freedom, happiness and layers to this stuffy inhibition. Amy’s life is undoubtedly dull and unsatisfactory. But Jenny represents an opportunity for freedom from this. Sure, even Jenny wears clothing that looks more Civil War than World War 1, but she is radical in a silent way, as is the film. The stuffiness has a point. And in scenes between Jenny and Amy, that repressed stuffiness falls away as they kind someone they can be their honest selves with.
Amy and Jenny’s romance is one built on small moments of kindness (and Jenny occasionally dropping an overtly thirsty line). Jenny’s attraction is immediate but they’re friends before anything else. Their closeness comes from an understanding the two women share that they’ve found nowhere else in their lives. It also comes from a simple place of kindness. Especially for Amy, Jenny is the only person who offers her unconditional kindness and kinship.
I had unfounded worries that because it’s a 1976 TV movie, The War Widow’s overt lesbianism would be underplayed. I expected subtext instead of overt text. Physically, that is true to a degree. There sure aren’t any kissing scenes in Válečná vdova. But the third act does feature Amy expressing her feelings clearly and without doubt. The dialogue is extremely clear that this is a story about romantic love between women. There’s also some poetry and romance to it. There’s a lovely scene where Amy explains to her mother that not only that she does love Jenny but the “why” of her affection. The way Amy talks about Jenny is moving and quite sweet.
I expected the entire movie that Amy’s husband would die because that would make things easier. Válečná vdova doesn’t take this easy route. Amy has a living, deployed husband the entire time she falls in love with Jenny. At the end of the film, the war is over and her husband, who seems to genuinely love Amy is set to return. Still, Amy chooses Jenny. And it’s not just that she chooses romance. Choosing Jenny also means giving up her role as a mother. This is a story of a woman with a deployed husband and young child giving that up for a lesbian romance. It’s a delight and surprise that Amy is a a sympathetic, likeable main character whose choice of happiness with Jenny is portrayed as generally good.
Válečná vdova undoubtedly looks like a 1976 TV movie. But within that framework, there is a sweet, small yet quietly radical romance. The film starts slow but by the end, the story really impressed me. It feels like a complete portrait of a woman’s life and an unexpected romance. The romance itself has a solid foundation and some moments of beautiful dialogue in the last act. As the sole WLW film representing 1976, I am pleased to say that Válečná vdova je úspěch.
Celkové hodnocení: 6.3/10
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LGBT Movies: The War Widow (1976)
Válečná vdova premiered on PBS on October 28, 1976. It was part of the Vize series of original teleplays. A repressed housewife (Pamela Bellwood) waits for her husband to return from World War I. She meets a photographer (Frances Lee McCain) who awakens her hidden passions. This lesbian period drama borrows elements from Henrik Ibsen’s play Domeček pro panenky. Both protagonists must choose between the artificial safety of domesticity and the risk of an independent life. It could benefit from some humor to cut through the melancholy, but it features a rare optimistic ending.
Válečná vdova had fallen into obscurity until it was restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. It is a groundbreaking work that merits attention. Learn more in this spoiler filled recap.
Act One: A Gilded Cage
Scene One: Mother’s Home
MOM (Chatty): Don’t you think being a woman is fun dear? I just love knitting and arranging flowers.
AMY (Depressed): Sure.
MOM: Ever since your husband went off to war I’ve been so lonely. Thank goodness you and your daughter moved in with me.
AMY: I’m going to the movies.
MOM: Movies? Isn’t this 1860?
AMY: My husband’s at the Great War. Not the Civil War.
Scene Two: Tea Room
AMY (sobs): I feel so trapped!
JENNY (bold): ‘Scuse me miss. I can’t ignore a pretty lady sobbing. I take photographs for a magazine. Why don’t you come to my studio?
AMY (smiling for the first time): I’ve never met a woman who worked.
Druhé dějství: Dobrodružství
Scene Three: Photo Session
MOM: I could not possibly have my picture taken in this dress. I must change.
AMY: While she’s changing why don’t you tell me about yourself?
JENNY: Well, I grew up on a farm. I broke away to find adventure.
AMY: (I’m so turned on right now. But I don’t know the words to express it.)
Scene Four: Beach House
AMY: I’d forgotten what it was to be happy. I like the sea! I like opera! I like horseback riding!
JENNY: I like you.
AMY: I have this cracked teacup. And I still drink from it. Even though I know it’s about to break. Because I’m like that teacup.
JENNY: … Meaning?
AMY: Give me time.
(Cut to the women lounging in bed in their night gowns.)
JENNY: I guess time has passed.
AMY: I guess so.
(Amy kisses Jenny’s hand.)
Třetí dějství: Průkopníci
Scene Five: Lesbian Party
OLD LESBIAN COUPLE: Have a cigar and a cognac! Let’s loosen our corsets and dish!
AMY: I feel seen and it terrifies me. I have to go.
JENNY: Please don’t. They’re the liveliest characters in this movie.
AMY: You want to live together. Like they do. But I can’t give up my daughter! (Utíká.)
Scene Six: Mother’s Home
AMY: I’m giving up my daughter.
MOM: So, you love a woman. Big deal. You’re lonely. Once your husband gets home, you’ll forget this nonsense.
AMY: Baby your mother has to go away. I promise I’ll write.
DAUGTHER: MommyIdon’tunderstand.
AMY: Not much of an actress, are you?
DAUGHTER: NoallIcandoisracethroughmylines.
Scene Seven: Tea Room
(Jenny sits alone. Amy walks up. Jenny smiles.)
JENNY: This is just like the end of Koleda.
AMY: Like what?
JENNY: Never mind.
(They take hands.)
Dům panenek
“The necessity to leave behind family, tradition and comfort, to accept ostracism and disgrace, was devastatingly portrayed. But these were stories of survival, and the message was that gays were survivors.”
Vito Russo, Celuloidová skříň
Controversial when aired (the PBS program included a disclaimer noting that it was funded entirely by grants, not tax dollars), the resulting moving drama (produced by TV pioneer Barbara Schultz) represents a significant milestone in the realistic, positive depiction of lesbians on primetime television.
Filmový archiv UCLA
Screenwriter Harvey Perr told the UCLA Film and Television Archive that he left his own wife and daughter when he came out as a gay man. The teleplay was a way for him to process it. The lead actresses were warned the film would hurt their careers. They took the risk and played their roles without self-consciousness. Pamela Bellwood would soon be cast in the hit series Dynastie. Frances Lee McCain continues to work on film and television. I know her best as the resourceful mother in Gremlins. Nan Martin and Barbara Carson do lovely work as the longtime couple. Often same-sex romances isolate their leads in a heterosexual world. Here Amy gets a brief introduction to a larger community.
I’ve watched countless coming out scenes. But Amy’s coming out to her mother (Katharine Bard) took a clever turn. Her mother already knew what was going on. She rationalized the relationship as a natural response to loneliness. But also clung to the hope that it would end once the menfolk returned. Neither woman has the language to describe a lesbian relationship. But they communicate regardless.
Můžete sledovat The War Window at the UCLA Film and Television Archive. You can find more of my reviews on Avokádo, letterboxd a Serializd. My podcast, Rainbow Colored Glasses, can be found zde.
Hive review – Kosovan war widow dealing with sting of grief in richly intelligent film
B lerta Basholli’s award-winning debut feature is a film about honey and also about ajvar, a sweet dish from the former Yugoslavia made from aubergines and red peppers. But the film tastes fierce and sharp, like black coffee.
It is based on the true story of Fahrije Hoti, a Kosovan woman whose husband went missing during the Balkan wars of the 90s, and so just to stay alive and provide for her children, she formed a women-only collective with all the other war widows (or presumed widows, longing for definitive news of what Serb forces did with their missing husbands) making honey and other delicacies to sell. But the film shows her facing brutal misogyny and violence from the men in her village who feel she is getting above herself. (The drama comes with a closing disclaimer emphasising that some of it is fictional, I suspect to pre-empt lawsuits.)
Albanian-born Kosovan actress Yllka Gashi is excellent as Fahrije herself, a woman who started this business at least partly to manage or exorcise her grief: the hive in their garden was set up by her husband. This is her way of staying close to his memory; she remembers how instinctive his touch was with the bees and how he never got stung. Fahrije, on the other hand, is always getting stung, and this is partly why she switches largely to ajvar; each sting is a reminder.
There is a marvellous scene in which Fahrije’s young son is thoughtfully combing his hair in front of the mirror, with some adolescent stirrings of vanity, perhaps. Watching him, Fahrije suddenly smiles, with transparent love and pain, and without needing to be told we can see she thinks he resembles his father. Her own father-in-law Haxhi (a great performance from veteran Kosovan actor and musician Çun Lajçi) is a glowering figure, dealing with agony and grief in his own way, but gradually coming to value Fahrije. This is a richly intelligent drama, in which every word and every shot counts.
Hive is released on 18 March in cinemas.
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