A Hymn to Life by Gisèle Pelicot review: A paean to dignity in the face of the unspeakable

Few of us will forget the trial of Gisèle Pelicot’s husband, Dominique, in 2024. It was turning over the stone of civilised society and seeing unspeakable things. For at least a decade, Dominique Pelicot had drugged his wife of 50 years with sleeping pills and chemical relaxants so that he and men he met online could rape her — orally, vaginally and anally — as she lay like a dead woman. She was dressed grotesquely in the suspenders that she had refused to wear. There were 50 men on trial for participating in the rape; some 20 others could not be identified.