Antonia's Line (1996)

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

The winner of the 1995 Oscar for a foreign language film has, I think, been unfairly derided on political grounds. Antonia, called Antonia's Line in English, is a Dutch feminist film and has drawn criticism just for that. Sexists love to paint feminists with one brush based on a lunatic fringe, but as a male film watcher I can testify that there's nothing about the film that should be offensive to men. A villain rapist is a man, but rapists exist in life and there are plenty of men in the film who are decent. The women in the family never marry, but many of them still love men and keep them close in their lives. What really scares closet sexists is that the women in this movie are strong characters- even if it's in a positive way, that just won't sit will with those still wishing for a male-run society. The real objective of feminism is for men and women to share power, not make females the sole power.Antonia's Line (a title that makes more sense than the original title of Antonia, because it better captures the focus of the movie), is a fine film that includes colourful, interesting characters, some funny moments and some compelling drama. For example, Thérèse is an interesting character because of her abnormal intelligence, and when the narrator announces she's been raped it's a shocking, disheartening moment (even though we don't actually see that rape). There's also some humour in Danielle announcing she wants a baby but also having a lack of interest in a husband, and in how her own mother arranges for her to get laid. There are lots of characters for a fairly short film, but most of even the minor characters have some appeal. This movie deserved its Oscar and it deserves to be seen.

The 1995 winner of Best Foreign Language Film tells the story of a woman, her daughter and granddaughter over several years in the Netherlands. The women do everything to show their strength. One of the best parts is what happens after a hypocrite makes fun of the granddaughter; I would hate to be in his place! Overall, "Antonia" (called "Antonia's Line" in English) is definitely one that I recommend. This and "The Assault" are Holland's two supreme masterpieces. In other words, ik reken erop (Dutch for "I count on it") because it is truly iets zoets (Dutch for "something sweet"). A veritable part of De Geschiedenis Des Nederlandsen Films (history of Dutch cinema).

Antonia's Line…..(the only important, inspiring math-movie) Here is a stark contrast in movies about the subject and culture theory of mathematics in a modern biographical/educational setting. It's a foreign film, Dutch, and it provides a contemporary alternate point of reference for the many examples of mathematics involved cinema in American film. And what it tells Americans about their society, it's institutions of film and government, how they are seasoned with psychological, anti-intellectual propaganda is fascinating. Those conditions have their pronounced features for different historical reasons, geography, culture drift and the unique roll of the U.S. since WWII and of course the synergy between mathematics, war technology and the evolution of the Cold War to permanent information war. Part of that war you see has opened up a front specifically treating mathematics whereas it had long since considered the public and public education critical targets for softening and fluorochemical bombardment directly linked to today's epidemic mental retardation anomaly--The war not only against information, but the war against mind; and the staple brand manufacturing of the U.S. public educator as motion picture laughing stock in a devil may care, entertainment commercialized riot zone on what the electorate is supposed to keep throwing away its taxes and the students their disposable income, trend adoption, affected attitude, style, mannerisms and other grievously wasteful contaminations.The movie sets its own pace, follows the development of a little girl and her close-knit communal ties. Indeed it would appear that in the structuring of the mathematician here it does 'take a village'. And she turns out to become a remarkably gifted algebraist/group theorist of some kind. We could parallel this film through a procedure often employed in mathematics, what's called an Extension to another European movie "Mindwalk", where we could imagine catching up to her after her career had gone through a government military closure working on SDI in physics. This is the woman the politician's friend takes him to see on Mt. San Michelle; and by this procedure of comparing biographical cinema in the sciences better appreciate its span and gender specification through the traditional underdog in the stereotypically male dominated arenas of math and science.For one thing, the main character isn't portrayed as crazy or mentally ill; if that's important in establishing the sharp contrast repetitively marring American genre in this same category. So the film is a great relief from the mental cruelty heaped on intellectual aspirations in a perennially bullied and sinking American educational decline, promoted through the mass industry of Hollywood film propagandas marketed as so called 'entertainment'. 'Buyer beware.' Not to bother comparing it with the far inferior movie 'Proof', even in the biographical abundance that would have been available to structure a film about John Nash, "A Beautiful Mind", a wide ranging set of life experiences also caught up in Europe for an extended time, instead a hack biographer is selected to play up the crazy smear in order a distortion in film can be manufactured from that template. Chalkboard scenes are important litmus for calibrating the realism or contrivance, in Antonia's Line you have a far more natural setting, in the Nash film something completely different, i.e. yet another instance of 'throwing away the textbook', similar to the classroom setting in 'Dead Poets Society', and a storming of the lecture by an overzealous psychiatrist's Gestapo when Nash lectures on The Riemann Hypothesis. Induce, then blame the victim—the usual knuckle-dragging monkeyshine's half-truths and characteristically feckless White lies. The American audience is dismissed as childish enough to have those sorts of overt propaganda coercions foisted on them without comment or feedback, what are really unqualified abuses of portrayal, demeaning to education and educators and really amount to nothing more than the usual crass bullying of another intellectual that has come to supplant better film and literature development in this country domineered instead by 'Animal House' and high school movies trying to reduce our establishment to zoos and mockeries in terms of international standards. Through this filter of film culture-study a picture of the Cold War victor begins to take on a caste of embedded contradictions…not so much the friendly film skies and greatest country in history…as it is in fact a continuation of the social war of the 1960s, a jingoistic sniping at the public from hidden bunkers and assassin boy scout camps of no account, now more contained in how the news media selectively manages the gathering dirty secrets as they pile up, cumulate in unexplained pandemic disease prevalence or just happen to come crashing down in tons of steel and debris for no official, discernible reason. If, upon weighing the available fare, interpreting and selecting from the alternatives this review stimulates a greater interest to seek out foreign film equivalents rather than continue to be bludgeoned by the bad parent of Hollywood imitations, hopefully the better informed consumer choice will result in a healthier film-going experience avoiding such obstacles to unhindered aspirations.

My all time favorite movie. I rented it years ago with several other titles and almost didn't get around to watching it. Since then I've rented it twice more and own both VHS and DVD copies. Antonia and her young daughter return to live in the European village of Antonia's childhood as Antonia's mother dies. Antonia is at once an insider and an outsider in the village, which we explore through the two women's relationships with the villagers, each other, and the family that grows around Antonia throughout her life. Antonia and her daughter face joys, tragedies, and outrage while retaining an essential sense of self-regard and a core of strength.This movie is the antithesis of "the Hollywood movie": witness the sex scenes--one a pure definition of making _love_ as love is variously expressed, another depicting sex for convenience, another showing violence expressed as sex--none are lurid or extraneous to the story. A second example of the "not-Hollywood" nature of this film is the scene of Antonia with the gun and how the scene plays out. Although I seldom see a film more than once, maybe twice, this movie improves with multiple viewings--you recognize the source and content of the drawings in the opening scenes, you anticipate certain moments, you catch nuances you missed before. Find Antonia's Line, watch Antonia's Line, let Antonia's line become part of you.Final note: this movie is in Dutch, subtitled in English. Do not be discouraged; it's well worth the extra effort.