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Pain Alone

Watched Pieces of a Woman recently and was surprised how cold the whole movie felt despite a such a sad topic it deals with. The story is about the death of a baby minutes after its birth and how that rips the family apart. While that was the strong central theme, as a viewer I saw one of disbalanced, unequal partnership leading to tragic outcomes with no path to recovery. 

The woman is shown to come from an affluent background with a complex relationship with her mother. The man is working class - not quite as rich or refined at her and hers. He refers to himself as "boorish" at some point. While that is not the affect he creates the point still stands. He is a outsider and somewhat subordinate to her and her whims. Presumably she knows better or best because of who she is and where she comes from. 

A great deal of emphasis is placed on the fact that he is her partner not husband. It seems the idea of a home birth was hers and no one could talk her out of it including the man whose child it equally was. This man goes along with what the headstrong woman wants. When the child dies, she completely excludes him from the process of grieving as he had no right to it - her loss and hers alone. 

It was fascinating how little sympathy she evokes in the character of a mother who lost her baby at birth. The viewer feels a lot like members of her family who have been cast aside and excluded from her grieving entirely. She has assumed exclusive rights to it. She manages to alienate the viewer as well. There are many other details in the movie and viewers will likely see most sharply the things that resonate with them. 

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