Berlin Review: Ursula Meier’s ‘The Line’
11.02.2022 - 21:39
/ deadline.com
Violence and motherhood make for an unusual combination in Ursula Meier’s Berlin Film Festival competition title The Line (La Ligne). Set in remote present-day Switzerland, it stars actor-singer-playwright Stéphanie Blanchoud as Margaret, whose anger towards her mother Christina (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) frequently turns physical. While she’s a grown woman, there’s something primal and childlike about Margaret’s visceral fury that suggests a disorder that’s never named.
It also points to problems in her past. These become apparent as a restraining order is filed against her, and as Christina rants about the youth she lost when she had a child so young. Christina has since had two other daughters: Louise (India Hair), now heavily pregnant, and sensitive schoolgirl Marion (newcomer Elli Spagnolo), whose way of rebelling against her bohemian, self-centered mother is to turn to religion.
It’s an arresting story of familial disharmony that’s distinctive both visually and thematically. The line of the title isn’t just metaphorical: it’s a physical line of paint rolled into the grass around the family home, a cruel and darkly comic visualization of the boundaries between Margaret and her mother and siblings.
And yet, Margaret is not an instantly sympathetic figure: she is aggressive and wild, bruised inside and out. While we’ve seen many male characters like this, it’s rare to have an adult female lead with these traits. This makes The Line as refreshing as it is challenging, inviting us to question our own preconceptions about women who communicate largely physically.
Blanchoud puts in a committed and unnerving turn, very believable as a wounded, angry person, repeating furious comments over and over as she flies into an
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