The Price of Mother’s Milk: The Milky Way’s Haunting Vision of Motherhood

The Milky Way (Hebrew: Halav - חלב) is a 2023 Israeli-French film written, edited and directed by Maya Kenig. I watched it with my own mother at its premiere at the UK Jewish Film Festival in London in November 2024. Being pregnant at the time, the themes of motherhood and breastfeeding appealed to me, but I wasn’t prepared to be moved to tears in the first scene: spacey, psychedelic rock music, with a haunting vocal and lyrics to match (“Let’s put an end to this, something beautiful and good”), slowly revealing the main protagonist Tala (Hila Ruach) singing on stage, 9 months pregnant. 

We can tell from the context that she’s alone and in some form of denial about her situation, and then we’re catapulted, as I’m sure she feels, into looking after a 3-month old and struggling financially. We learn through subtle storytelling that she has some deep set issues with her own mother’s mothering, culminating in her mother’s inability to fully support her.

We see her interviewing for a position at what can only be called a breastmilk factory - employees, fed exclusively vegan and nutritious diets, pump all day and their milk is sold to elite clientele who for various reasons cannot breastfeed. 

There’s a gut wrenching moment where she’s reunited with her baby in the factory nursery after the morning pumping session. Her daughter sees her, cries and rejects her breast. Confused, Tala turns to her close friend also working there and receives a commiserating look: “You’re dry honey! It’ll be easier for both of you when she’s used to having the bottle.” Stripped of that unique connection, Tala’s experience of motherhood and view of herself drastically changes. We begin to see the extent of her depression and disillusionment with the world.

The company prides itself on manufacturing high quality milk - Tala gets in trouble by having one cigarette which is picked up in the lab reports - but it isn’t just interested in selling it. It presents its work as almost sacred. In the main corridor, a painting looms over the workers: a woman endlessly pouring milk from a jug, her movement never ceasing. Beneath it, a song echoes through the facility: ‘As long as she doesn’t stop, the world doesn’t end.’ The message is clear: women’s ability to nourish is both celebrated and demanded. Yet, as Tala’s experience reveals, this reverence comes at a cost; one that severs mothers from their babies in the very act of sustaining others.

But The Milky Way isn’t just about one woman’s struggles. It’s about how motherhood, in all its forms, is both idealised and undervalued. This theme deepens and changes from what was a dystopian dark comedy into a reckoning of existentialism when we meet Nili (Hadas Yaron), a woman who, on the surface, has everything Tala lacks: wealth, stability, privilege. And yet, she is just as lost and depressed. They bond over their experience of not being good enough mothers, reflecting the unrealistic and contradictory expectations of women and independence in society. 

A quirky co-dependence grows between them. Nili, lonely and bored, finds Tala intriguing and genuine, in stark contrast to her own overly controlled life, whilst Tala’s continued financial straits puts her in a compromised position, needing Nili’s help. There is a touching scene where Tala glimpses the Indian housekeeper looking longingly at her pendant containing the portrait of her young daughter. This secret discovery of her humanity brings the focus on all these mothers and all these children they sacrifice for. 

Assa Raviv and Tom Armony, and Hila Ruach who is herself a musician, fill the screen with emotional dreamy synth music, not unlike the oxytocin state of breastfeeding, an endless flow of love between mother and child. It leaves one thinking-- no, feeling, vividly that this bond and relationship goes beyond time, place, and circumstance. All mothers everywhere are doing their best. And, as in the case of Tala and her anger, many find purpose in the journey of motherhood, providing meaning and responses to life’s unanswerable questions. 

As I approach the birth of my baby this spring, The Milky Way highlights the immense and intense emotions that surround this unique and yet universal responsibility felt by mothers. 

Maybe the painting was right – women sustain the world. But at what cost?

By Betsy Dwek, midwife and Shifrah UK co-founder