52 Films by Women Vol 3. 13. THE DIVINE ORDER (Director: Petra Volpe)
Switzerland was late in giving women the right to vote. This
was only achieved in 1971 following a public referendum. In other countries
female suffrage was achieved through Act of Parliament. The first country to
give women the right to vote was New Zealand in 1893. This was followed by
Australia in 1902 (though not, sadly Aborigines until 1962), Finland in 1906
and Norway in 1913. The UK offered women with land the right to vote in 1918,
before universal suffrage was declared in 1928. American women got the right to
vote in 1920. In France, the land of liberty, fraternity and equality, women
got the right to vote in April 1944. Even in Pakistan, women got the vote in
1947, reaffirmed in 1956, when elections took place.
Why in Switzerland did it take so long?
The country had something called direct democracy, which is
to say, that if you pass a law and people weren’t very happy about it, you
could amass 50,000 signatures and compel a referendum. The people – that is, up
until 1971, your blokes, could stop bad things from happening. They could also
stop good things from happening - like votes for women.
Direct democracy took place at the local level in districts
known as cantons. In the United Kingdom, we have boroughs and counties; in
Belgium they have communes. If the population in a canton voted against
something, it didn’t become law. Whilst in most of Switzerland, women got the
vote in 1971, in the canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden, women didn’t get the
vote until 1989; in canton Appenzell Innerhoden, the men resisted completely
until in 1990 the Supreme Swiss Court forced every canton to comply with an
Equal Rights Amendment that was on the statute books.
A referendum in Switzerland to give women the right to vote
was defeated in 1959 by 67% against, 33% for. In 1971, after revolutions had
taken place in Europe, those figures were virtually reversed – 66% for, 34%
against. Why the change? Unlike other European countries, Switzerland was
neutral during World War Two. Its young men weren’t conscripted to fight and
women stayed, as the saying goes, in the kitchen. But in the 1959, one canton,
Vaud, voted to extend women the right to vote at the local level. The door was
ajar. Elsewhere in the country, green ribbons were worn advocating ‘votes for
women’. Change was affected. It took until 1985, for the legal right over
women, whether they could vote, or where they lived, to be taken away from
their husbands. True equality is barely thirty years old in an otherwise
prosperous country.
Swiss writer-director Petra Volpe’s film, Die Göttliche Ordnung (The
Divine Order) conflates the two issues – the right to vote and the
right to have control over one’s affairs in Switzerland. It tells the story of
Nora (Marie Leuenberger), a young housewife and mother, who becomes stirred to
action when her niece, Hanna (Ella Rumpf, known to international audiences from
Julia Ducournau’s horror flick, Raw)
starts dating a long-haired, motorcycle riding wastrel and is institutionalised
as a result. Nora’s sister in law, Therese (Rachel Braunschweig) cannot prevent
her unhappy farmer husband, Werner (Nicholas Ofczarek) from ordering her to be
locked away. When during a village gathering, Nora is asked to contribute to a
fund to prevent women from being given the vote by her husband’s employer, Ms
Wipf (Therese Affolter), she refuses. She finds an unexpected ally in Vroni
(Sibylle Brunner), an old woman living with her daughter, who lost her job
running a bar after her late husband drove the business into the ground with
his gambling and drinking. Vroni and Nora book out the local hall for a meeting
to advocate the vote for women and team up with Graziella (Marta Zoffoli), a
German speaking Italian woman who took over Vroni’s former bar. Before long,
Nora is treated to strong Italian coffee (tentative sip), then a hairdo, then
finds herself travelling to Zurich to take part in a protest. Her real beef is
that her newly-promoted husband, Hans (Max Simonischek) won’t allow her to
apply for a job for the travel company, Suomi. Now that her sons are growing
up, she wants something for herself. Hans sagt „nein.“
Volpe’s film is terrifically entertaining in a generic way.
It owes a little to Aristophanes’ play Lysistrata.
After the men ridicule women for wanting the right to vote, they go on strike,
leaving the men to cook their meals and look after the children. Hans is
furious with his wife but after serving eggs for dinner, he feels inspired to
go to the kitchen and prepare an apple pie. He would have finished it too if a
group of men hadn’t banged on his door telling him to do something. Nora’s sons
also bear the brunt of their mother’s action. However, a much higher cost is
paid by Vroni, after the strike is challenged.
The most enjoyable sequence has Nora and Vroni travel to
Zurich to take part in a march through the city. They end up attending a
women’s meeting hosted by a Swedish woman who invites each woman to get to know
their own vagina. They are encouraged to identify them from a gallery. There
are apparently nine different types; Nora’s is a tiger. Nora, of course, has
not had an orgasm and learns something about the possibility of sexual pleasure
through the attempt to secure the vote.
The film also debates the extent to which women need men.
Graziella has a sentimental attachment to her man but Nora’s relationship to
Hans is more complex. If she cannot change his mind, can they really stay
together?
Hans defends Nora’s honour at work and gets into a fight.
The real battle is between Therese and Werner.
Because of her husband, Therese was disowned by her daughter. She wants
to make amends.
The big climax takes place as the women watch men place
their votes. They can do no more. Here, though, is the film’s disappointment:
it does not really explain the final vote, why the men voted the way they did.
Indeed, the film can’t possibly represent the perspective of several hundred
thousand men through a small village.
The title is ironic. There is no ‘divine order’ that decrees
that men should exercise absolute control over women. In the end, Nora’s
appreciation of her own body and its part in her own sexual gratification leads
to a happy ending. We never find out too much about the kid on a motorcycle – a
McGuffin with a crash helmet. But that doesn’t diminish the feel good factor of
the outcome and Aretha Franklin belting ‘Respect’ over the end credits.
Reviewed on a screener, Sunday 11 February 2018
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