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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A celebration of life and bloodline, 20 Aug 2003
As ANTONIA'S LINE begins, we watch an elderly Antonia (Willeke van Ammelrooy) awaken in the morning and decide that, before the day is out, she'll gather her family around her bed, and die. Is she desperately ill? Not apparently. But she's lived life to the full, and now it's time to exit. She rises to begin her last day like any other, gazes out the window, and her life flashbacks for the audience.Shortly after the end of World War II, single-mother Antonia returns to the small, Dutch village of her birth with her teenage daughter, Danielle (Els Dottermans). They arrive just in time to attend the death of Antonia's own widowed mother. Afterwards, mother and daughter take over the family farm, and begin to assimilate into village life. Generation follows generation. Antonia founds a matriarchy, and heads an extended family of neighbors, who periodically gather around her outdoor table for a home-cooked meal to celebrate existence. ANTONIA'S LINE is an earthy, mostly gentle, and occasionally eccentric salute to life - alternately humorous, sad, happy, tragic, dramatic, and poignant. It wouldn't have worked had the setting been urban. And there's a plethora of interesting characters. The Mad Madonna, a woman who howls at the full moon from her second-floor town apartment, and the man downstairs, a Protestant, who's prevented from declaring his adoration for her because she's a Catholic. Deedee, the mentally challenged and sexually abused daughter of a local family who seeks refuge with Antonia, and Loony Lips, the village idiot that loves her. The nihilist Crooked Finger (Mil Seghers), who never goes outside his dwelling, but is Therese's brilliant philosopher-tutor. Boer Bas (Jan Declair), the lonely widower farmer who craves Antonia's companionship. Viewers born and raised in the U.S. may find the film's eminently practical treatment of sex, sin, crime, punishment, and religion startling. This is, after all, a Dutch production. Antonia barely bats an eye when Danielle tells her that she wants a child, but not the man that goes with it. Off the two go to the Big City to find a suitable stud muffin, who ultimately plants the seed during an afternoon's hotel tryst while an imperturbable Antonia waits outside. Meanwhile, the village knows all, takes care of its own, and keeps to itself. It's Antonia around whom everybody else revolves in this pastoral soap opera. Van Ammelrooy is delightful, and the Make-Up Department does a superb job "aging" Antonia from her 30s to 80s. Dottermans has a slightly off-kilter visage that helps to make her Danielle immensely sympathetic. All performances are flawless. My only objection to the plot was the starting point, which was that Antonia found it appropriate and timely to die for no good reason that was explainable. She was in apparent good health, and anchored the support network on whom so many depended. Her leaving almost seemed selfish. However, that said, it's a good trick if you can manage it. The ultimate Quit when you're ahead.
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