THE DIVINE ORDER is a timely and fascinating dramatisation of women’s suffrage in Switzerland leading up the 1971 referendum on women receiving the right to vote. Unfortunately, an overt sentimentality denies this powerful subject the dignity and integrity which it deserves.
Marie Leuenberger plays Nora, a housewife in a small Swiss village. She waits on her father-in-law hand and foot, washes clothes, cleans dishes, makes the tea and cooks the food. Her sister-in-law (Rachel Braunschweig) is passively complicit in the puritanical attitude towards Nora’s niece, Magda (Bettina Stucky). Nora’s desire for a more fulfilling personal and professional life comes to fruition when she decides to spearhead the local women’s liberation movement, with the help of the older Vroni (Sibylle Brunner) and Italian immigrant Graziella (Marta Zoffoli), and to the chagrin of many of the locals.
THE DIVINE ORDER conveys a sense of time and place well – both in terms of the political landscape in Switzerland and the actual production design. Narratively, the wider barriers to progress are refracted through the prism of personal progression. Nora is unable to pursue a career without her husband’s permission; Theresa is powerless when her daughter is imprisoned, as her drunk and violent husband has the sole authority to release her.
THE DIVINE ORDER offers an occasional visual flourish – Nora’s opening bike ride through the snow-bound countryside is a beautiful demonstration of the skill of cinematographer Judith Kaufmann. However, the performances and narrative bear the thematic load, and and the occasional tonal deviation chips away at the gravitas of the film. The old trope of empowerment-through-a-makeover makes a wholly unnecessary appearance: Nora’s sense of social justice is awakened by a fringe and some tighter jeans.
“The old trope of empowerment-through-a-makeover makes a wholly unnecessary appearance: Nora’s sense of social justice is awakened by a fringe and some tighter jeans.”
Actual sartorial statements made at the time notwithstanding, this makeover and shopping trip are a trite way to underline the birth of an activist. Conflating this political liberation with a shoehorned event on sexual liberation feels like a comic insert where none was really needed. Overt sentimentality makes its way in at the conclusion, and there are some easy conversions which seem unlikely in a non-fictional context.
None of this particularly undermines the film, which is clearly trying to address a serious topic in a light-hearted and character-driven manner. However, it does prevent it from gaining a complexity that would make it truly memorable. There are several black-and-white heroes and villains, when real people are anything but. Some subplots based on equally weighty themes are wound up just as conveniently.
Despite these minor issues, THE DIVINE ORDER is a solid and enjoyable tale of personal progress mirroring societal progress. A film’s reception shouldn’t rely on the worthiness of the themes it addresses, but the stylistic and narrative shortfalls can perhaps be given some leeway for tackling such an expansive subject.