About Love

Wow, watched it today and loved it. These are the real thing, the real documentary. The end, the grandfather, everyone, the filmmaking, just genius...

It was hard to watch much of the 90 minutes of this film, which focused on arrogant and egotistical husbands berating and verbally abusing their obsequious wives. The biggest revelation of the film was the mother. How she was able to retain her lovely, sensitive spirit, hidden and unbroken, in the midst of the rigid and forced gender roles within her patriarchal culture is quite an inspiration. Her beautiful soul is wasted on her boorish husband, who seems to find satisfaction in browbeating and demeaning her. I don't blame the daughter at all for not wanting to get married, if this is the example of marriage she grew up seeing.

Seeing as the majority of countries and cultures of the world are patriarchal, I think many women can relate to this family dynamic. I found it especially interesting that each generation of women seemed to be less tolerant of the patriarchal system, so that gives me hope. The oldest generations of women are sometimes the biggest torchbearers of the system that oppresses them. Young women like this filmmaker are standing firm and saying no, we won't accept this anymore. We expect equality and respect.