Currently Browsing: Adoption
Márta Mészáros 'Adoption' broke new ground for feminist filmmaking by exploring the act of motherhood in an unconventional way in 1975.
There are times when a member of an older generation mentions something they consider obvious, only to see a glaze form across the face of a member of a younger generation’s. The reference has gone completely over her head. As a child, when I told my parents I hadn’t heard of something, their response would usually be, “So what are they teaching you in school?” This is not to condemn the education I received, but a genuine inquiry: why there are certain surprisingly specific gaps in my knowledge?
For me, Márta Mészáros’ Adoption (1975) crashed over me in a wave. In this Hungarian black and white film, 43-year-old factory worker “Kata” (Katalin Berek) desperately wants a baby. When her married lover “Jóska” (László Szabó) rejects the idea of having one together, Kata looks into adoption. During this time, she grows close to the orphaned teen “Anna” (Gyöngyvér Vigh), who wants to leave the orphanage and marry her love “Sanyi” (Péter Fried).