Saint Omer

everyone should watch this film, but even if you don't, at least give this a read: "we still don't understand laurence coly. some would have you believe she's a liar, arrogant, a manipulator – in short, a monster. but this very morning, laurence told me about a dream in which elise was with her in prison. when i opened the door of her cell, elise ran to hide under my attorney's gown. laurence knows that her daughter will always be with her. she is inside her. what i'm telling you is not poetry, it is science. we know that during pregnancy, the mother's cells and DNA migrate to the fetus. it is less known that the exchange works both ways. the child's cells also migrate towards the mother's organs. they lodge themselves in her body, from her brain to her toes. even after birth, even if the pregnancy is not carried to term, those cells live on, sometimes throughout a woman's life. a mother and her child are thus intertwined with one another in an inextricable manner. it's inevitable. it's biology. do you know what scientists call these cells? chimeric cells. like the chimera, the mythical monster. a hybrid creature composed of different animal parts. a lion's head, a goat's body, a snake's tail. so, members of the jury, i have come to believe that we women, we are all chimeras. we carry, within us, the traces of our mothers and of our daughters, who, in turn, will carry ours. it is a never-ending chain. in a way, us women, we are all monsters. but we are terribly human monsters." this is translated from french (via the captions that come with the film on hulu). it's probably immensely more beautiful in its original language, but this monologue has CHANGED me either way. i've thought about it almost every day since seeing this film for the first time in july, and i just needed to share it