The Divine Order

The Divine Order is an enjoyable drama comedy, with just the right amounts of loveable characters, passion, drama, and charm that the format requires. The scene is set in a Swiss village in 1971. Women still don’t have the vote, and young housewife Nora doesn’t see many ripples ’68 revolution that swept across Europe only a few years prior. That is, until her husband, Hans, refuses to let Nora get a part time job outside of the home. According to the law, that is completely his decision to make, and this awakens the long dormant rebellious nerve in Nora. She joins a women’s right activist group to fight for the right to vote, where she soon turns into somewhat of a figurehead. These choices that Nora makes are certain to jeopardise her marriage as well as her personal liberation.

Director Petra Volpe manages to squeeze a lot of comedy gold out of the setting in a backwards, reactionary Switzerland of the 1970s. There are plenty of laughs on the expense of helpless men who are nearly starving to death in front of the fridge when their wives go on strike and refuse to do any housework. But The Divine Order goes further, and illustrates how women tend to be objects of blame, shame, and manipulation when they try to stand up for themselves. Keeping this in mind, the film is not only a fun historical document, but thought-provokingly relevant to current affairs.

Petra Volpe (b. 1970) is a Swiss director and scriptwriter based in New York. She studied at the famous German film school Konrad Wolf in Babelsberg. The Divine Order is her second feature film, after a number of TV productions, and has become a huge box office his in Switzerland.