Small changes in History

"En tierra de hombres" is the needless translation given in Spanish to North Country, the title of a great film directed by Niki Caro and released in 2005. What I like most about this film, apart from the interesting story it tells, is the way in which it is made: the performances are convicing; the recreation of the space and time in which the story is set is excellent; the way in which the script is written and the story is told, with its comings and goings, is frankly remarkable. I haven't seen Whale rider, the former work by the director, so I cannot make a comparison; however I think, from what I've heard, that both films share an original approach to the issue of feminism or, better than this, to particular stories in which a woman has something to say or to add in a society planned and built according to men's designs. Among the strong points of North Country we can highlight Charlize Theron's performance. The actress demonstrated, as later she would do once again with In the valley of Elah, that she can play the role of a daily heroine in an absolutely convincing and realistic way. In this film she acts the part of a young mother who goes back to her hometown and starts working in the mine which is the main source of income for the inhabitants. However, this means almost exclusively the male inhabitants; and the minority of women who work there suffer mistreatments and verbal abuse from the part of a great majority of their work colleagues, day after day. 

The most striking thing of the film, in my opinion, is that this situation doesn't seem strange or wrong to the majority of the town-dwellers; it's just the perpetuation of what has always been, of roles established through centuries: it's the man who works in the mine, and the woman who stays at home and has to be sustained. That's why the first claim against the main character is that she's the one to be blamed, she's the provoker. And, of course, this has to do with the ancestral temptation of marking as a whore the woman who goes beyond her historical role, because we're talking about historical roles and also about fears and shamefaced silences in front of the unfair and embarrassing situations created by a particular way of building societies. This film contains many cruel, challenging images, but it also leaves a powerful, optimistic message in the end: the satisfaction of knowing that injustices can be brought to the public light, and the voice of the weak can finally be heard. North Country is inspired in the real story of one of the first successful trials against sexual harassment at work to set a precedent in the early nineties. We usually take for granted some rights and freedoms which were given to us through unnoticed struggles from the part of minorities which didn't give up. History sometimes moves on in this way, not with great revolutions, but with small changes: so small that we often get surprised when we are told their micro-history.