Beautiful and Disturbing
Jim Poe
15.10.2011 - Swedish director
Lisa Aschan's She Monkeys is one of the more unusual and arresting
debut features screening at this year's ADFF - or anywhere for that
matter. As deceptively quiet, intense and moody as its troubled
heroine, She Monkeys screens in the
New Horizons Competition and is also part of the Festival's
Spotlight on Sweden. It has already won Best Narrative Feature
at the Tribeca Film Festival and a special mention at the
Berlinale.
The film doesn't so much tell as observe the story of Emma (played
by Mathilda Paradeiser), a thoughtful, tomboyish teenager who tries
out for a place on an all-girl equestrian show team. It's a fair
bet most viewers won't be familiar with the ins and outs of
performing acrobatics on horseback, so the most immediate allure of
the film is simply watching the girls' intense training, which
Aschan illustrates in rhythmic, precise, beautifully filmed
sequences in a barn-cum-gymnasium lit with dappled sunshine. As we
quickly discover, the physical fitness, discipline and
concentration required to compete in this world are grueling. It's
never made clear whether this troupe is considered world-class or
some small-town sideshow, but it doesn't matter - the middle-aged
coach is as exacting and tough on her charges as a drill officer.
The film's tension lies in the effect these demands can have on
young women who aren't through growing up yet.
Partly as a survival tactic, Emma befriends one of the other girls
on the team. Cassandra (Linda Molin) is as tall and striking as a
model, but her rosy, friendly face conceals a stormy, capricious
and obsessive personality. Soon the pair are spending all their
time together, lost in the kind of cult-like clique of two that
sometimes takes over the lives of the young. However, the
competitive nature of their sport ensures that Emma and Cassandra
are rivals as well as best mates, and their fascinated
co-dependency manifests more and more as contempt, abuse and even
violence.
The key to She Monkeys is the way Aschan develops all of
this. Eschewing the conventions of the coming-of-age drama, Aschan
approaches her subjects clinically, studying them as if they were
fascinating and dangerous animals (thus the bestial title). This
detachment makes Cassandra's teasing and flirting seem like some
brutal instinct, the wily behavior of a predator; and with no
emotional hook to rely on, we're never sure what lurks behind
Emma's baleful, staring eyes.
The approach is markedly similar to that of another recent debut
from a female director, Athina Rachel Tsangari's
Attenberg, which also concerns a strange relationship
between two young women from the detached outlook of a nature
documentary (thus the title's Greek-modified reference to Sir David
Attenborough). The two films even share similar oddly beautiful,
disembodied shots of back muscles, the tension of which is the
perfect symbol for She Monkey's unusual tone.
Aschan confidently employs stillness and silence - including
puzzling lapses in the already laconic dialogue - to build a
heightened atmosphere that's not so much suspenseful as it is
filled with aching adolescent dread. This foreboding mood is
enriched by Aschan's fine use of light and color, and the
transcendent glimpses of nature at work behind all of the weird
human interaction - especially the wonderful shots of barley
blowing in the wind that frame several scenes. It's a gorgeous
film. But the film's inscrutable protagonists remind us that what
is beautiful can also be disturbing.
She Monkeys screens at VOX Cinemas, Marina Mall on
Sunday, October 16 at 9:15pm and Tuesday, October 18 at 3:15pm.
Director Lisa Aschan and producer Kristina Aberg will be on hand
for Sunday's screening to introduce the film and answer audience
questions afterwards.