L'emprise

When it was screened on French TV ,the movie found a huge audience .

It was not the first time the harsh subject of beaten wives had been tackled ,but it was never treated in such a realistic (and thus often unbearable way).

Alexandra is a nice girl ,but a very naive one:it seems that she marries Marcello to challenge her father who warns her against this violent man who was once married with a woman who says the same :' get away from him!"

She lived with him for 14 years!14 years of daytime nighttime sufferings ,black and blue,her arm in a sling,limping ...nothing is spared the audience;even the children are battered .

Marcello is a complex character:he looks nice and gentle,and we're told he was himself beaten by his father when he was a boy;every time her unfortunate wife leaves him,he makes her come back home by promising he will be "different" .

Alex who gave up her studies even supports him several times,particularly before her dad and her brother;she hides her bruised legs ;she does not want her dream (her nightmare?) to end.

The movie is treated as a trial with long flashbacks depicting Alex's ordeal;she killed her husband in self-defense: he was threatening her children;the final plea of the prosecutor vindicates the defendant;he puts the society on trial: no one came to Alex's rescue:the only help she got was from her dad (who tried to cheat the police) and from her best friend (who,unexpectedly coming to visit her ,discovered her husband prostituted her ).Actually,Marcello was a victim too ,of a childhood who made him a pathologically jealous man;he could probably have been cured ,but they looked the other way.

At the end of this MTV work,statistics about beaten wives appear:they are numerous and many of them don't dare to speak.

I saw this movie yesterday evening, with my wife and my son (19 years) and none of us remained insensible to the message passed on meanwhile, when we remained nailed on our seats, attending the hardness of what live this woman and her children under the influence of a violent husband and because of the impassiveness of the major part of the society, in face of such situations which reproduce too often in our world, around us. The acting is quite good and the transmitted message leaves nobody insensible. This movie answers very well the questions that can arise, on the reasons which can get a victim of domestic violence to keep silent, and to stand such acts. Everybody should see this movie, to become aware that our silence is only the complicity of the men who mistreat their women and their children. I highly recommend this movie because it can be a revulsive to change something in our society and maybe avoid similar situations.