Rating: 5/5
Criterion Challenge 2024 | 23/52 | Directed by Mai Zetterling
An acting troupe sits in a living room, reading over Lysistrata. The play is a Greek comedy that takes place during the Peloponnesian War in which the titular character persuades the women of the warring cities to withhold sex as a means of brokering peace.
They read a scene in which Lysistrata (played by Liz) is appealing to Kalonike (played by Gunilla) to join her cause — Kalonike places the importance of being a housewife above all else. Gunilla receives a call from her husband Bengt mid-reading, wanting to know when she’ll be home.
Cut to the stage, where Liz and Gunilla block out the same scene. The director tells Liz that she doesn’t look angry enough. At this, Liz recalls an argument with her husband, Carl.
Gunilla’s character states the importance of husbands and children. The director asks her to at least pretend she’s interested. At this, Gunilla recalls talking to Bengt about the tour with their four children sprawled out between them.
Marianne, who plays Myrrhine, runs late to rehearsal to deliver her lines, in which she pleads for a voice on the matter. In the play, Lysistrata asks why they should listen to her when she shows up late for the meeting. Marianne mixes up a line, and the director suggests she might get her lines in order if she shows up on time. At this, Marianne recalls standing with her married boyfriend by the lake, pulling her toddler out of his hands, and breaking up with him. Her crying toddler at the theater brings her back to the present.
Cut to Hugo, one of the actors, watching Gunilla, Liz, and Marianne on television, discussing the importance of the play and how it relates to the present. They make jokes about the men in the story being boys.
— They never take anything seriously. — What woman ever does?
The program shows a rehearsal clip in which the women ask Lysistrata what is so important. Hugo cuts off the TV before she can answer.
Thus, the film’s cadence goes as moments from the play intersect with moments of the women’s lives. They take the play on tour, where audiences are bored or don’t get it. The play and reality slide into one another as moments of conversation become indistinguishable from the play and vice versa.
As a piece of filmmaking, it’s near perfect. It combines an arthouse structure with human, grounded storytelling. The film performs the impossible task asked of women — to be all things to all people. This movie is Second Wave embodied.
All the principal actors are regulars in Ingmar Bergman films, drawing further parallels in how men tell stories about women versus women telling their own stories.
The film itself received similar responses in 1968 as the audiences to Lysistrata. The critical response in Sweden was so hostile that it would be 20 years before Zetterling made her fourth and last Swedish film.