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Salient. Official Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 41 No. 19. July 31 1978

Adoption

Adoption

One feature of Marta Meszaros' Adoption was especially impressive: its treatment of the relationship between two women. We have heard a lot about the breakthrough in Julia, where this same feature is said to be used in a more open and exploratory way than nearly all films that came before it.

Yet in Julia a crucial reliance is placed on the childhood memories of one of the women only. In a sense, Julia is less about a relationship than about the way the past can infiltrate and still be left standing by the present, The fact that the story involves two women is almost incidental subject matter, and has little to do with theme.

Adoption, on the other hand, analyses the problems of its female protagonists directly, facing up to them as the problems of women. The story concerns Kata, a 42 year old unmarried woman who develops a wish to have a child by her lover. He is married, wants to stay married, and certainly doesn't want such an immense complication in his life.

The couple are drifting apart, their expectations and feelings for each other assuming a radically different perspective. Then, into Kata's life comes Anna, a teenager living in a state home for unwanted children. The two are attracted to each other, and Kata conceives of the idea of "adopting" Anna as her daughter. However Anna has a boyfriend whom she wants to marry. Eventually Kata adapts her plan and proposes to adopt a baby from the orphanage.

The wishes of the two women come into conflict with their feelings for each other. Anna will not agree to Kata's proposal even though she uses Kata's home as a rendezvous with her lover, and deliberately affronts Kata with her sexuality. Nevertheless, Kata does her best for Anna and even manages to arrange the marriage. Anna, for her part, displays true friendship and support when Kata is rejected by her own lover.

The developing, living relationship between the two is beautifully and sensitively evoked, and lays the groundwork for the film's exploration of the mutually recognised and accepted desires of the two women.

Each woman perceives in the other's scheme the same fundamental characteristic: that whatever its limitations, however much it could mean later sorrow and regret, each is acting from a deep-felt impulse without the guidelines of others or the sanction of propriety. Put simply, each has made an independent choice to accept responsibility and is about to act on it.

Near the end we see Anna crying in the corner at her wedding breakfast. Does this mean a mistake has been made? Probably not. We are being reminded of the weight of responsibility, not told the protagonists shouldn't accept it. The parting shot, of Kata running along a deserted country road to catch a bus home, baby in her arms, is a gentler reminder of this same idea.

Simon Wilson