If not exciting, Annie’s life is satisfying, or so she believes when we meet her at the start of the film. Annie Anger. Worker, she is married to Philippe, with whom she had two children. The couple is very united, but neither spouse wants another child. Also, when Annie becomes pregnant, Philippe approves of Annie’s decision to have an abortion, even though, in 1970s France, the procedure was illegal. But, support or not, the fact is that Annie has to manage on her own. This is how she discovered the Movement for Abortion and Contraception Freedom (MLAC). Her existence will be transformed: an initiatory journey as moving as it is instructive, as finely recounted by the filmmaker Blandine Lenoir.
As she told us in an interview, the director ofDawn carried out extensive research prior to writing the screenplay which she co-signed with journalist Axelle Ropert. It is obvious, both in action and in words.
Set in 1973-1974, just before the Veil law was tabled, which decriminalized abortion in France, the film paints a captivating portrait of an “ordinary” woman who discovers in herself extraordinary resources and strength. .
The conditions conducive to this awareness begin to be put in place when Annie obtains a safe abortion performed by a doctor in the presence of an MLAC volunteer. The benevolence of the group, combined with the very safe sanitary conditions, moves her deeply. Admittedly, she is not ready to join the MLAC for all that: her job, her children, her husband…
However, when her neighbor and friend tragically perishes as a result of a clandestine abortion, like so many other women (the figures put forward freeze the blood), the timorous Annie becomes the angry Annie of the title. An anger perhaps not holy, but in any case healthy. Because it is thanks to her that Annie decides for the first time to fight the deep injustice that she feels in her heart and in her guts. Concretely.
So here she is, getting involved with the MLAC, who is even learning how to perform the abortion procedure… But then, after being delighted to see her become politicized like him, who is a trade unionist, Philippe turns his back: and work, and the children, and him…?
Wonderful Laure Calamy
While it shares many narrative similarities with Call Jane (We are Jane), by Phyllis Nagy, produced concurrently, Annie Anger turns out to be even more nuanced, and moreover more substantial with regard to the revisited socio-political context.
In the production, Blandine Lenoir favors a judicious sobriety, but does not make the image speak less. For example, it first shows Annie in wide shots with her children, with her eldest daughter in particular, before moving on to tight shots expressing a new closeness (against the transmission of knowledge) between the mother and her teenage daughter. .
Copious but justified, the excerpts from television archives add to the impression of authenticity. In this regard, we recognize with happiness, in the person of a bourgeois blonde who welcomes the MLAC, a thinly disguised version of the actress Delphine Seyrig: in her time, the star of the Discreet charm of the bourgeoisie was very militant.
Finally, it is important to point out the tremendous work of Laure Calamy, who, after Full time And The origin of evil, offers with his Annie another memorable performance. A film to remember or to learn and, above all, to never lose your temper.