Hans bakes an apple pie
When you think of Switzerland, what comes to mind? Neutrality, Alps, clocks, chocolate — these things for sure. I also imagine a level of social sophistication and a penchant for forward-thinking, even amid old-world trappings. I don't know why I make this assumption. A place so physically beautiful would just seem to engender a freshness of thought and spirit.
What I did not realize until I watched "The Divine Order" is that Switzerland denied women the right to vote in federal elections until 1971, and one region of the country actually held out until 1991. It's a mind-boggling slice of history. While the United States and much of the free world were athrob in all manner of revolution — counter-cultural, sexual, anti-war — Switzerland was still debating women's suffrage.
"The Divine Order" is an earnest, if sometimes plodding, effort to show the sacrifice Swiss women made to gain access to the ballot box well. The film's moral center is Nora (Maria Leuenberger), a mother and housewife in a small village whose life is defined by the domestic rituals of washing clothes, cooking meals and vacuuming around the slippered feet of her live-in father-in-law. Nora's is an existence of silent servitude — it's not just boring her, it's crushing her.
Nora asks her husband, Hans (Maximilian Simonischek), if she can work part time. Permission denied. She gets her hands on a Betty Friedan book and feminist pamphlets, and she's consumed by the radical idea women can be on par with men at home an in the workplace. When Hans goes off to fulfill his obligation as an Army reservist, Nora evolves from mouse to tiger, organizing the local women to agitate for the vote. The men dismiss their efforts, so the women go on strike, taking up residence in a restaurant owned by a village newcomer sympathetic to the cause.
"The Divine Order" attempts to stuff the entire feminist movement into 90 minutes, resulting in some fairly ridiculous caricatures. Nora's immersion includes a flower child-led support group about getting in touch (literally) with one's vagina. The village men, except for Hans, are all sexist cretins who consider any attempt to question their authority worthy of retaliation that at times veers into the violent. We at least know Hans has a touch of sensitivity, because in Nora's absence he slaves to make an apple pie while wearing a flour-smeared apron (amazingly, writer-director Petra Volpe resisted the temptation to dab flour on his nose).
Through it all, Nora remains a quiet heroine, and as played by the ever-poised Leuenberger, she gives the film its strength. Watching this, I was reminded of the Jim Carrey movie "The Truman Show," about a man who yearns to break free from his suffocating small-town circumstances and taste the world. Nora marvels at a light-up globe, considering the places she's never visited and never will. She describes for her sons the fish living at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean that never see the sunlight. The boys are too young to perceive in their mother's wistful eyes she is equally starved of illumination.
"The Divine Order" will be shown at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the Jefferson Academic Center at Clark University. There is no Sunday show. The film is part of the Cinema 320 series.