Occasional Work of a Female Slave

That rarest of movies: a left wing comedy which doesn't hang itself up in questions of 'realism' but does involve itself very closely with the everyday flux of political and social pressures. Alexandra Kluge (the director's sister) plays a young housewife and mother who works as a part-time abortionist; her cynical complacency gives way to a bright-eyed 'activism' when she's forced out of the job and starts waging a one-woman war against the authorities, the bosses, and the tyranny of the family. Kluge charts her hopeless campaign through documentary (an unblinking look at the fact of abortion) and witty fiction alike, his methods recalling both Brecht and Godard; everything is informed by a kind of wry humour that keeps the plot in perspective without tempering its immediacy. It's hard to think of another film that's as honest, relevant and yet not disillusioned as this.