TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL 2015 // A FILM REVIEW OF "SWORN VIRGIN"
The 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, presented by AT&T, runs April 15th-26th and features hundreds of features, documentaries, short films, and special events all throughout downtown New York City. The ArtsWire Weekly's three featured reviewers Mateo, Derek, & Chrisena are hitting the festival and bringing the reviews right to you! What you should see and what you should skip...
When I was a little girl, I loved to wear frilly skirts, hated dirt and owned a box of crayons that were only shades of pink and purple. I was a girly girl. Then I saw the film Pocahontas and I realized I liked being outside and playing in the mud. Shortly thereafter I decided I was going to be football player and wear a pant suit. Two years later and all I wanted to wear was eye shadow, flowery skirts and high heels. The point I’m trying to make is that I was in a free society to choose which life I wanted. What gender roles I liked and what I didn’t like. I enjoy football, but I also like the ballet. I’m a big fan of baseball caps and pink nail polish. In this country I am allowed and free to like what I like and to live how I would like.
Hana Doda, played by Alba Rohrwacher, is not so lucky. Hana is born in a small and secluded village in Romania where woman are treated as lesser beings, livestock even. Hana is an orphan and when she goes to live with her new adoptive family, it is immediately clear that she will never fit in the role that society has prescribed for her. In this specific village, there is an ancient ritual in which a woman may live her life as a man, as long as she swears to remain a virgin. Hana takes this oath and begins to live her life as a man. Many years later however, Hana goes to visit her adoptive sister in Italy, and quickly her oath is tested.
Hana embarks on a slow-moving and confusing transformation from “man” into “woman”, discovering for the first time what she likes, and what she doesn’t. The film is a slow moving work that includes heartwarming moments of discovering bras, awkward moments of discovering the male genitalia and beautiful moments of a woman taking back her identity. On the whole the film is interesting. However, it moves too slowly. While Rohrwacher’s performance has an incredible amount of depth and strength, I don’t understand some of the scenes included in the film. For example, there was an almost five minute long scene in which the camera is submerged at an awkward angle to catch what feels like perverted footage of young girls swimming in a pool. I didn’t understand the need to include that at all. I also wish that more focus had been placed on Hana’s struggle in regards to deciding whether or not to break the oath. She seems to not think twice, which seems so incredibly out of character. These issues severely dulled the sharpness of this film’s storytelling.
VERDICT: SKIP IT
DIRECTED BY Laura Bispuri WRITTEN BY Francesca Manieri, Laura Bispuri STARRING Alba Rohrwacher, Flonja Kodheli, Lars Eidinger, and Luan Jaha
Playing as part of The 2015 Tribeca International Film Festival. For tickets & schedules: http://www.tribecafilm.com
CHRISENA RICCI once went to a costume party dressed in an all black dress and black wig. No one there could guess who she was. So she shouted out, "I'm Christina Ricci, without the T or I and add an E!" Everyone stood there confused, she was annoyed, so she stormed off. She never returned to that apartment ever again. Which is fine, because she later realized she was at the wrong party. She now lives in New York City.