AMMONITE has two refreshingly grumpy women at its center. It‘s the first half of the 19th century. Paleontologist Mary Anning (Kate Winslet) – who really existed – supports herself and her mother by collecting, cleaning and categorizing fossils on the southern coast of England and then sells them to tourists. It‘s a tedious, dirty job that doesn‘t pay a lot and the fossils land in the display cases of male collectors and institutions that proceed to relabel them. It‘s no wonder that Mary is gruff when young entitled wannabe collector Roderick Murchinson waltzes in asking her for a tour. She shows his sickly wife Charlotte a bit more care when she‘s tasked with taking her for walks along the beach for money while Murchinson tours across Europe. Charlotte (Saoirse Ronan), who would prefer to stay in bed depressed all day, isn‘t excited at the prospect either. Winslet is wonderful as the brittle researcher and is also one of the few actresses who does manual labor convincingly. Ronan is a young woman who is very weak but also very moody and spoiled. In both cases their rough exterior isn‘t just an expression of a stubborn personality, but is also the result of social experiences. The two women get closer despite, or perhaps due to, their “difficult“ nature and begin an affair that both know has to remain a secret and will end as soon as Roderick returns from his travels,

Upon first and also second glance, Francis Lee‘s AMMONITE is reminiscent of Céline Sciamma‘s PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE. The historical location of the story, the constellation of the characters and the filmmaker‘s interest are similar. Both films take place almost completely within the female sphere. Like Sciamma, Lee doesn‘t just look at gender relations, but also class. Both directors create a world that is incredibly physical and make raw and fine materials, the cold, wind, hunger and darkness tangible. But while Sciamma‘s film is about the impossibility of a good female life under the patriarchy and heads towards an unavoidable sad ending, Lee looks for possibilities and loopholes, traces of a lesbian alternative world in the past, or in other words, for fossils of lesbian everyday life in a heap of patriarchal gravel.

Hendrike Bake

Translation: Elinor Lewy