Unruly

Saw this at the Leeuwarden (NL) film festival 2023. Dramatized showcase about the state of the art in psychiatry as of 1930, set in Denmark but probably not much better in the rest of Europe. The focus here is on how hereditary it is when mentally disorder is diagnosed. There was a strong belief that children will become psychiatric patients too if one or both parents are, hence harsh sterilization laws were passed and enforced.

For starters, it is questionable whether patients locked up in a psychiatric hospital at the time were justifiably diagnosed as such. The film title emphasizes this phenomenon, and we see it confirmed in the way Maren is treated. And once you get labelled as such, everything you do only adds to confirm the label.

Secondly, one can foresee different proper roles for a woman who does not aspire to become a "properly married" wife and all the obligations that brings. Easy for us to say nowadays, but the ideas were different around 1930.

I saw a subplot that I assumed to get more attention at 3/4 of the story. The relationship between head nurse Nielsen and a colleague may look innocent in our eyes and at our time, yet it is even so unruly as what Moren did. I expected this to be picked up by Sorine as a vehicle to blackmail the head nurse. Sorine was promised repeatedly that she could meet the child that was taken away from her, but that promise was routinely broken, and the encounter was endlessly postponed. It could have been used as leverage to finally get what she wanted. That direction was not taken, maybe justifiably given the over two hours running time the film already takes.

All in all, the story holds our attention from start to finish. We cannot avoid a condescending attitude while watching, easy for us almost a whole century later. Too easy, as the time that e.g. Homosexuality was deemed something that could be cured and treated, is not that long past, and variants of conversion therapy are still practiced nowadays in some "bible belt" areas. Considering this, this movie succeeds very well in translating analogous misconceptions about our mind from 1930 to the current day. I scored a 4 out of 5 for the audience award when leaving the venue.

Maren is a textile factory worker from a poor single mother household in 1930s Copenhagen. She is headstrong, extroverted, and late to work sometimes, but she is one of the best workers in the factory. She enjoys having fun, going out at night, dancing, jazz, drinking, and sex. In other words, Maren is a normal person. However, certain people don't like her attitude and the morality police are called. Maren treats them as a big joke until she is restrained, drugged, and hauled off to an island asylum. "We help girls like you get their lives in order," they say, but help or not, orderly or unruly, no one seems to be getting off the island. Maren attempts to inspire the other women to dream, escape, and to make something of their lives.

Unruly is based on the sensational true stories of real women who were denied the right to determine what they could do with their own bodies. Hmm, the story seems familiar, but I can't quite place it?! Unruly fires on all cylinders; acting, direction, story, costumes, editing, casting, sound, etc. . . In Denmark from 1923 to 1961, like elsewhere in the world and even today, women were abused, blamed for the abuse, placed in mental institutions, sterilized, separated from their families and children, and more. I wish the morality police around the world would learn their lessons by now that attempting to control people does much more harm than good, but here we are. This film will help raise awareness and inspire people, especially women, to dream and take control of their lives.

I have always considered the Scandinavian societies as free and tolerant. I still do. But once in a while there is a film that causes a scar on this image. In 2016 it was the film "Sami blood" (Armanda Kernell). With respect to violating the rights of native people you think of America (Indians) or Australia (Aboriginals) but not of Scandinavia (Sami). Nevertheless Sami people where discriminated against until the 30's of the last century.

The film "Unruly" caused a new scar. The film is about the way an independent and (admittedly) somewhat wild girl is treated in Denmark in the 30's of the last century. The film is situated in an institution that existed from 1923 - 1961. It is based on real laws about forced sterilization.

Forced sterilization, that sounds pretty much like a Nazi practice. As if this isn't enough in itself the film adds elements that make it even worse, a lot of elements.

The forced sterilization is motivated by the so-called feeble-mindedness of the victims. In reality a sexually liberated girl is wrongly diagnosed as feeble minded.

There is a double standard in the sense that being sexually liberated is only seen as harmfull for girls. In the film the main character (Maren played by Emilie Kroyer Koppel) has a one night stand with a married handyman when she already is in the mental institution. It is of course Maren who has to be sterilzed, not the man who has to be castrated.

The management of the institution that suppresses the girls is formed by women. On top of that these women (guardians of the sexual morality of that day) do not adhere to this morality themselves. They are only better in keeping there love life secret.

The main theme of the film is clearly the supression of women, but the film also has a thing or two to say about psychiatic institutions. In this respect it can be compared to "One flew over the cuckoo's nest" (1975, Milos Forman). As already said the diagnosis that lies beneath the intake in the institution is unclear and the criteria for dismissal are equally unclear. As a result the girls are hospitalized for years and the question if the doctors are there for the patients or the other way round comes to mind. With respect to head nurse Nielsen (Lene Maria Christensen) you doubt wether her bevahiour is driven by care for the girls or plain hunger for power in the same way as by the nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) character in "One flew over the cuckoo's nest".

One minor defect of the movie in my opinion is that it takes itself very seriously. Within all the drama there is practically no comic relief moment. Partly this is due to the script. Was it really necessary to add the hypocricy of the managhement element? Partly this is due to the lead actress. Emilie Kroyer Koppel does a fine job, she is however not Jack Nicholson.