Moons and Months

I have watched documentaries that have dealt with riots, wars and revolutions – things that are considered the larger and important issues, the stuff of life. I have even watched documentaries that have dealt with gender bias, women’s empowerment and women’s rights. But, a documentary on women and menstruation was quite new, fascinating and righteous to me. Diana Fabianova’s The Moon Inside You was an entertaining, informative and defiant look at women’s monthly bodily process and the taboos, fears and myths associated with it. I sat in a theatre filled with women who were laughing, identifying, sneering, acknowledging and with men, who, though I couldn’t perceive fully in the darkness, were presumably stunned, if not queasy.
Fabianova has travelled to the USA, Africa and Australia apart from Europe in search of answers to questions that have been in several women’s minds over the ages. Why is menstruation so painful to the point of it having the symptoms of a disease? (There are 150 symptoms and they range from the psychological to the physiological). Why is discussing menstruation in public forbidden? Do women want it? And, what do men think about it? Her search for answers is more of the first step towards asking more questions than attaining closure. She meets doctors, anthropologists, social scientists and women and men to get information and attitudes to the issues.
The Moon Inside You is openly rebellious and has upset the years of rigidity associated with the subject. As a self-journey, Fabianova has ridiculed sophisticated male scientists and narcissistic doctors. The true knowledge of the subject comes from a young girl from Slovakia who maintains a video journal which records her impressions concerning menstruation and her own coming of age. The rapid succession of narratives highlights the contrast between the pseudo-sophisticated and the unassuming truths told by a youngster.
The documentary starts with pedantic and rigid pictures and diagrams used by school teachers to educate the young concerning the process. These are sordid, monochrome, formal visuals. Compare these with Fabianova’s animated representation of menstruation – the effect is stunning and innovative. The animation is humorous, visually appealing and charming. It is a subversive move on the director’s part and has provided the openness and light-heartedness long required in this subject. What Fabianova, seems to have missed and this could be due to limitations of a time frame and budget, are the stark cultural differences in attitudes towards menstruation. Perhaps what the director wishes to draw attention to, is the underlying stigma and bias irrespective of cultural variables.
A belly dancer from Spain tells you how to reduce menstrual cramps through belly dancing. Social therapists tell you how this is perhaps the most significant aspect of womanhood (not pregnancy….!!!) and with every period a woman is reborn. This is the time when the woman knows best about life because of the accessibility provided to the unconscious realm of the mind. An anthropologist states that this could be the source of woman’s power. Fabianova’s mother who has undergone hysterectomy misses what it felt like every month but still enjoys life (she goes belly dancing…). At the risk of the biological determination of womanhood, The Moon Inside You is nevertheless one of its kind.
Yes. Some of us have struggled with womanhood and enjoying it to the fullest. In The Moon Inside You, you will find a million reasons to feel good about being a woman. And then go out, and find a million reasons more.

(seen above is the director Diana Fabianova)