I've watched An Education by Lone Scherfig yesterday and it made me thinking. The plot was in a way wery simple, a romance between a sixteen-year-old school girl and an older man. But it was not the main plot that cought my attention. It were the dialogues, which were absolutely brilliant in my opinion. A picture of an young girl, whos parents push her to the limits in order to get accepted to Oxford University. However, as soon as marrige possibility arises, the father changes the front and presses the girl to get married instead.
And those were the choices young women had those days, when college was seen as a sort of waiting room before a girl found a husband. Then, the education was not important anymore.
If you think about it, it was convenient in a way. I mean, it gave us women only two options really. Either stay single, get education and later work. Or simply get married and don't bother about the rest anymore. I am aware I don't sound very feministic right now, praising the way people were living in the 1960s, but that's my opinion.
Another reflection I had after watching this movie was about the system of education itself. Separate schools for girls and boys, uniforms, some sort of discipline. When looking at schools today, I see girls in short skirts and full make up, everybody busy texting, no respect for teachers and education whatsoever. Is that a progress? Should we be really proud of us now?
In a way I wish I was growing up in 1960s...
