Happening: Three Journalists Explore How This French Abortion Film is More Relevant than Ever

Audrey Diwan’s Venice Golden Lion winner HAPPENING could not be more relevant to current conversations regarding reproductive rights. Although the film is set in 1960s France, the journey of lead character Anne (played by Anamaria Vartolomei) attempting to access a termination when it is dangerous physically and legally for her to do so is an extremely empathetic story. 

Below, we enlisted three journalists to discuss the relevance of the film, its important themes and how it relates to current discussions of abortion injustice. Anna Cafolla is a Northern Irish culture writer, Jackson King is a trans, queer writer and Beth Ashley is a sex and relationships writer, all of whom have touched on these topics in their work and online presence. 

HAPPENING is exclusively on MUBI in the UK and Ireland from today, you can sign up for 30 free days as part of our collaboration with MUBI here.

Hi everyone! Let’s start by getting your initial thoughts on the film - what did you make of it?

Jackson: I’ll start with what I thought was really impactful: As indicated by the name of the film, ‘HAPPENING’, you really got a sense of this unwanted pregnancy and the resulting bodily changes and social implications as something happening to her, rather than something she actively participates in. There are multiple moments of Anne spending time with her naked body, either in the mirror, or in the showers almost observing everything as an outsider. I’m trans so I couldn’t help but draw connections between what it’s like to go through a pregnancy you don’t want, and what it’s like to go through a puberty you don’t want.

The prevalence of body shots really emphasises that this is about policing the body. And I found the shower scenes reminiscent of Foucault’s panopticon and the ways we police each other.

Anna: I am a big fan of Annie Ernaux’s writing, and found the film to be a true dedication to what she’s best at – clarity in the complicated, a clear eye on women’s agency, desire, autonomy. It’s so visceral and gripping – you are really brought into that sense of urgency and what’s at stake: Anne’s hopes and dreams. I felt so connected to Anne and like I was living the trauma with her. I thought a lot about the late, great Paula Rego’s Abortion series paintings, which she did around the time of the 1998 referendum on abortion in Portugal. Some of the women in her paintings stare defiantly, directly at you, as they endure the pain and indignity of illegal or DIY abortion. But the experiences she shows are nuanced, no one is a victim, they are stoic. I felt this of Anne in HAPPENING too.

Beth: I agree! I felt so scared for her throughout the film. HAPPENING does a really good job of setting up who Anne is, what’s important to her and what’s at stake despite her being a person of few words! We spend so much time with her, her friends, her naked body, its changes. We grow to understand how she feels about sex and what it means to her. And how much her studies mean to her. 

Although it’s a slow-paced film, there’s a real sense of urgency throughout the entire movie. Watching her try to keep participating with her studies and socialising is heartbreaking as you see her gazing off worried between conversations. She’s trying so hard to keep going, but the pregnancy is completely upending her life. How is she supposed to think of anything else, especially with no end in sight?

The film opens with Anne offhandedly mentioning her friends “think she’s a slut”, a name that she (directly and indirectly) gets called throughout the movie. Why do you think this trope of promiscuous women wanting abortions has lasted from the 60s, when the film is set, to now?

Beth: It’s made clear within the first 5 minutes of the film that Anne has been somewhat ostracised and shamed because of her sexual behaviour and this continues to get worse throughout the movie. Anne sums up why this trope has lasted through to today when she says something along the lines of “it’s convenient for them to think of me as a slut” when she talks about her friends annoying her. 

Women who shame other women who have abortions as “sluts” who are “careless” or “promiscuous” are doing this as a defence mechanism. Pretending abortions is something that only happens to sluts means you can pretend its not something that will ever happen to you. It passes the risk onto someone else - it’s the same sort of thing as when people say “why didn’t you just leave?” about abusive relationships.

Jackson: I think it’s really interesting that the film opens with the girls getting dressed and discussing what’s appropriate to wear out etc. Because that’s often where the conversation around women’s bodily autonomy begins: “Well, what was she wearing?” And therefore defining women as “asking for it” or being a “slut” and therefore undeserving of care or autonomy.

Anna: Completely agree with both of you! Promiscuity propaganda! This concept compels a socially conservative worldview, that upholds everything to the nuclear family to marriage, the obsession with policing trans bodies and shaming women for their sex lives. It’s a way to undermine sexual health and reproductive rights policies, programs, initiatives for ideological reasons, plainly. It’s a political agenda. 

It suits the right wing to create villains and deviants out of people who quite simply want power over their own bodies, agency, autonomy, to exist as you wish.

With abortion being illegal in France during this period, I found it interesting that nobody tells Anne that she’s unable to have an abortion, just that she shouldn’t do it due to the danger to her body and the danger of being arrested.

It rings true of the “criminalising abortion does not stop abortions, it just makes abortion less safe” rhetoric being passed around in light of the recent Roe vs Wade overturning. Why do you think it’s important to reinforce this message?

Beth: I think Anne’s doctor summed up why this message is so important as soon as he told Anne she was pregnant. He said, “The law is unsparing and the methods are not safe. Every month a girl tries her luck and dies in extreme pain.” I quickly wrote this down as soon as he said it because I almost threw up in my mouth. That line is absolutely harrowing. It’s frightening that this line is written to represent the stakes in the 60s, yet we’re in 2022 and around 68,000 women die of unsafe abortion every year.

“I think it’s also important to highlight how demedicalising abortion benefits us all.”

Anna: I think to add to what you’re saying too Beth – that most people when it boils down to it can concede to the fact that people should have the right to choose what they do with their bodies – I also think there’s this mass homogenising of abortion experiences. It is easier to think of these in the binary, even within pro-choice circles. Abortion is traumatic. It is a last resort. It is an agonising decision.But for some, it’s completely unremarkable, a no-goes-about-it. Misconceptions and stereotypes abound – in the UK, most people accessing abortion are over the age of 30, they have children already, they’re married, they’re employed. Doesn’t really suit the narrative of anti-abortion does it?

I think it’s also important to highlight how demedicalising abortion benefits us all. See, for example, telemedicine that was brought in in England and Wales for abortion access during lockdown. People could access early abortion care in their own homes. Despite its successes, the government were keen to quickly rip it away. For years, activists in Ireland networked with abortion pills. They’re safe, but illegal. There’s Women on Web, Abortion Support Network. I think like both Beth and Jackson are saying too, language around abortion access is all about power dynamics.

Happening is a very graphic film, with an unflinching look at the practicalities of abortion. Is being very visual in its depiction a positive or a negative?

Jackson: Personally, I thought it was brave and necessary. When it comes to even just pregnancy as a topic, and what pregnant people endure on a biological and physical level, there continues to be much mystery and things left unsaid. We hear all the time about women who’ve endured miscarriages and found it to be a very lonely experience, one that’s taboo. Similarly, I think abortion is often not spoken about openly, in a descriptive and direct fashion. People don’t know what an abortion procedure – particularly a backstreet one – might look like, or how traumatic it might be… On the one hand I dislike the idea that we have to vividly paint someone’s trauma to get people to empathise and understand, but on the other, I think that is the impact it has in the film.

Anna: I think it is a totally stark, horrifying and brutally honest portrayal of what it has been – and in some countries, continues to be – like for people trying to access abortion. Coming from the north of Ireland, I think often of a case a few years ago – a young woman took illegal (though ultimately quite safe) abortion pills at home, disposing of the foetus in her communal kitchen bin. Her housemates, finding out what she had done, retrieved the remains from the bin and reported her to the police. She faced a 14 year prison sentence.

Over the pandemic, women from the north of Ireland were miscarrying on ferries while travelling – against government guidance – to access abortion in England. These scenarios are a stark reality. I also agree with you both, that I question the limitations of human empathy if we have to be confronted by such unflinching, visceral images of abortion to agree to someone’s bodily autonomy.

Lingui, The Sacred Bonds (available to watch on MUBI in multiple territories, including the UK, Ireland, and the US) centres around similar themes - most obviously, unwanted pregnancy - as Happening but the story plays out in a much different way. Why is it important to have different representations of pregnancy, abortion and reproductive rights in the media?

Jackson: I watched HAPPENING with my boyfriend, and the first thing they said in response to the film was that this was the story of someone white, educated, middle class perhaps, and what about those who don’t fit into that narrative? What extra difficulties might they face? And so I think it’s good to have films like LINGUI for that reason. But also HAPPENING is set in the past – it’s easy to be like “oh that was then.” LINGUI shows the modern day horror of trying to access reproductive healthcare in Chad – a reminder (along with the overturning of Roe v Wade) that the fight continues today.

Anna: I think it’s so vital to see portrayals of the fight for reproductive rights and abortion experiences outside of what we usually see. Namely, like what Jackson has mentioned. Abortion access is affected by politics as much as it is displacement – see the case of Miss Y, an asylum seeker in Ireland who was kidnapped, beaten, and raped, and then denied an abortion in 2014.This topic interpolates so many other struggles – trans rights, the failings in providing Black women the same access to healthcare as white counterparts. And also, what with the ongoing overturning of Roe v Wade, that the fight continues. Abortion services in the north of Ireland have still not been officially commissioned. Poland is a terrifying place to be to access abortion.    

Beth: Similarly to what Jackson is saying, HAPPENING is a great way to show that an unwanted pregnancy can happen to anyone. Anne is a pretty privileged person - she’s white, able-bodied, middle class, attractive, but an unwanted pregnancy still happened to her and she still faces so much scrutiny and difficulty trying to undo what’s happened. LINGUI, however, shows what happens with an unwanted pregnancy when you don’t have all of those privileges. Both narratives are necessary, especially given the social climate. 

I agree with Anna too - we all have our own ideas of what terminations look like. It’s disturbing (but awakening) to see narratives that fall outside of what’s commonly shared with us. 

In Lingui, the mother-daughter bond is central to the story while in Happening, Anne and Gabrielle never speak about her situation. Do you think that stigma is preventing a discussion between them or is there another reason this relationship feels awkward?

Anna: LINGUI is really refreshing in its portrayal of mother-daughter dynamics. From my own experience growing up in an Irish Catholic household, abortion has been a contentious subject across the years. It is something we have discussed in difficult circumstances, especially with the tumult of law changes, court cases, grassroots activism at home. We have met on some points, then quickly diverged. Anne finds the support and solidarity you may hope for from a mother in other women who have no personal connection to her. It made me think a lot about the networks of women and solidarity we can find and cultivate against the patriarchy – like I mentioned before too, the incredible work of Women on Web and Women on Waves, or the contraceptive train in Ireland in the 60s.

Jackson: This is a little naughty of me as I’m riffing slightly off question but, I really thought the concept of LINGUI – the sacred bond between mother and daughter, but also between women – was extremely powerful. LINGUI means women helping each other navigate around patriarchal systems built to destroy them – whether that’s accessing abortion, or preventing FGM. I found it interesting in both films that ultimately it’s women who help and save each other. LINGUI to me also means solidarity. Community care. Mutual aid. Us keeping each other safe when the state and other powers try to harm us.

Beth: It’s heartbreaking watching Anne try to deal with this alone as she cannot speak to her mother and her friends distance themselves. Like Jackson said, community aid among women is so important when you can’t access help from the authority figures who are supposed to look after you. When I think about what I would do in the situation of an unwanted pregnancy, I know my mum and my friends would be there for me. Watching HAPPENING makes me realise what a privilege that is. 

Finally, how much relevance do you think Happening has to the present day? 

Anna: I think Diwan really deftly creates something that feels of then and now – yes, it’s set in the 60s in France and that’s the system this percolates in, but at times it also deliberately lacks the timely markers. It feels both intimate and universal. I think it’s also interesting for us to reassess what abortion care can and should really look like in a radical world that respects our bodies and autonomy. For example, in England and Wales, you need two doctors to essentially sign off on abortion. In Italy, a large proportion of gynaecologists say they are "conscientious objectors" to abortion meaning it can be nearly impossible to find one who practices abortion in Italian regions. As I’ve said, in the North of Ireland, though they’re now technically among the most liberal of abortion laws, the government has yet to commission actual services. This is a fight that transcends borders and political systems, it requires collective solidarity. 

Beth: I didn’t look up anything about HAPPENING before I watched it. And it’s telling that I didn’t realise it was even set in the 60s until Anne had her gynaecology appointment and later mentioned her birthday. This plot could be in an episode of an American soap opera next week and it would be totally believable. This plot could have been set in Ireland five years ago. It could even be the United Kingdom one day, since so many of our MPs are against abortion and our laws decriminalising abortion are not watertight. The film, unfortunately, has enormous relevance to what’s going on in the present day. There will be so many Anne’s, as well as people in much worse situations, without abortion access. 

Questions: Gina Tonic | Answers: Jackson King, Anna Cafolla, Beth Ashley

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