I missed this film when it was in the theaters and saw it on DVD recently. I was impressed with the raw and brutal portrayal of the oppression of a woman in a peasant religious culture. I am the product of a similar home from a geographically different culture. The dynamics were the same. I had a grandmother strikingly similar to the violent and domineering matriarch in the film. My mother struggled through domination and surfaced to be a scarred but liberated woman in her time.
I feel the film did a great service to educate the uninitiated, those liberal or naive people in civilized societies, who think that these cultures are quaint and should be left to spin on their own web of unenlightened misery. I think the film portrays a small variety of reactions and variables which effect these violent and repressive cultures when their members immigrate into industrialized and socialized societies with aspirations to human rights for all.
Given the massive inertia that must be overcome to get people, both immigrants and native residents, to be open, flexible, peaceful, generous and kind to each other, this film, beautifully produced, is a good primer. I recommend it.
