Early in Sarah Polley’s award-winning film Women Talking, we see one of the Mennonite women whose story the film depicts waking up in the morning. Wearing an off-white nightgown, the young woman sits up in bed and stares down at her lap. “It happened again,” she says. At first, it’s not clear what she’s referring to. There appears to be some blood on her legs and possibly on the sheets, but we get just the briefest glimpse, and the image of her legs jutting out from the off-white nightgown against the off-white sheets leaves us with only the murkiest impression. Did she have a bad dream? Did she miscarry? Did she get her period?
The “it” and the “again” to which the woman refers soon become clear. The women have been repeatedly drugged and raped by the men in their religious colony. Despite the hard evidence they themselves embody,...
