One question that has been often asked, mostly by men, in the wake of the Me Too movement, is why did some women choose to stay quiet when they were raped and why did they opt to speak about it years after the abuse. Ann Sirot and Raphael Balboni’s Diane in the Loop gives an insider perspective on sexual assault and provides the crucial answer without purposely spelling things out.
28-year-old Diane (Ninon Borsei) is always wearing a cowboy hat and is perennially conflicted about men. Her love-hate relationship makes her run into arguments, squabbles and fights with them, as they come into her life casually and then just as easily walk away. As she herself puts it, she has a way of pissing them off. While her mother (Sandrine Blancke) ticks her off for always wanting to start a revolution, she, in turn, calls her a doormat. Over one such altercation with the mum, she gets berated for what she considers a humiliating interaction with a man. “It’s a picnic, pretty stuff,” her mum brushes her experience aside while sharing the long-held secret for the first time, of having been raped at 19, three years before Diane was born. Something she didn’t even tell Diane’s dad and now estranged husband (Peter Van Den Begin).
The Belgium-France film has none other the filmmaking legends Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne as co-producers and it had its world premiere in the Orizzonti aka Horizons competition section of La Biennale di Venezia after which it travels to the Market at Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). The unique Western is concise and precise and scores well in all the technical departments but its biggest strength is in the writing, by the director duo itself. The character building and structuring of the situations and moments is at the core of the film.
And in that its Diane and her mother and their relationship that underscores several crucial issues. On the hand is the way the eccentric Diane goes on a mission to seek revenge and justice for a crime committed before she was born but she ends up unknowingly forging an odd link with the abuser from the past. Her mother, on the other hand, seeks inner reconciliation with her broken self, going back to the unfinished business of life—re-enrolling in college and rekindling old friendships with her best friend (Naidra Ayadi) but in an entirely new light. Diane in the Loop is about intergenerational trauma, the inheritance of violence and pain and what it can do to you and to the person you are closest to. The film also presents the radically varied thoughts and perceptions, attitudes and actions of women from different age groups and how their ideas on feminism could be utterly disparate. Borsei and Blancke convey it all effortlessly. The two actors spar in a way that makes them seem like real mother-daughter, as does their unspoken caring and affection for and responsibility towards each other.
While dealing with a very grim issue Diane in the Loop doesn’t lose sight of everyday humour and earthy romance. Diane’s encounter with a cyclist (Lucas Meister) who hitches a ride with her and the unexpected twists and turns in their relationship is full of surprises and loopy charm. A reason why the film could end up with a divided house of an audience, especially when it comes to the neat finale. Too easily achieved, too feel-good, flippant and quirky? Or a welcome sign that life doesn’t have to come to an end in the face of brutality. Time can be a harbinger of hope and healing, not just helping a survivor move on but also turning her into an achiever.
