Word: churches
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Pamela Berger's novel, and the screenplay which she co-wrote with first-time director Suzanne Schiffman, is primarily the tale of women--women as healers, as mothers, as workers, as the backbone of their community. These women, the lifegivers, are contrasted with the rigid authority of the Church. They represent the naturalistic opposite of "civilization" and they challenge the monk's--and the viewer's--nations of what constitutes knowledge, progress, society...
...movie progresses, the monk is forced to assess the traditional concepts of knowledge and faith which have driven him to embrace the Church. What is so remarkable about Berger's message is that the anti-canonical philosophy of the plot is reflected in the personal growth of the characters, as well as in the political evolution of the story...
THIS intertwining of the personal and the political--crises of faith in the Church's canon and the cultural canon--are the core of Sorceress. The movie is effective as a political statement because its characters are eminently real people, grappling with concrete, emotional problems and not just abstract representations of the political hierarchy...
...final confrontation with Elda, the monk is jolted into understanding and acceptance of her different ways. The story she tells is all too familiar and jarring to him, secure in his family position, in his Church, as a man. Raped by the local nobleman on what was to have been her wedding night, Elda became pregnant and was sent by her mother to live in the forest with an old woman who gathered herbs and acted as the local healer...
...Church St., Cambridge...