The "Brussels" they excoriate is a symbol of encroaching evil, a witches' coven of malice and spite.
Set in a remote Protestant village of northern Germany in 1913, the film is about an outwardly placid rural community which is in fact repressive and plagued with anonymous acts of retaliatory malice and spite.
This is playground behaviour taken to another level, where all the world can see on Facebook or Twitter the petty malice and spite young girls spit out at one another and at other women they envy or resent.
The setting is a remote village in northern Germany, in 1913, an outwardly placid but actually dysfunctional and repressive society, plagued with anonymous, retaliatory acts of malice and spite.
She is devoted to her sister, Rose Fiona Glascottt), and her mother, Mary Jane Brennann), but has developed very low self-esteem on account of having to work in a local shop for the cantankerous, ill-natured Miss Kelly (Brid Brennan), whose malice and spite are to play a decisive role.
But it's a fascinating insight into the pre-history of the celebrity industry: a lost world where newspapers, with buccaneering, freebooting journalists, and some serious money to spend, could make hay with juicy stories and make anti-stars of members of the public who didn't suspect the backlash of malice and spite that lay in wait for them.
