Small Body

A dozen women of all ages cir­cle a ghost­ly, white-linen-veiled fig­ure in pro­ces­sion. They hum in har­mo­ny as the veil is cer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly removed to reveal a young, preg­nant woman who silent­ly walks towards the ocean. This imme­di­ate and con­fronta­tion­al intro­duc­to­ry scene pro­pos­es the cen­tral the­mat­ic ques­tion of Small Body: will this moth­er sink or swim?

A por­trait of deter­mined moth­er­hood in 1900s North­east Italy, Lau­ra Samani’s fea­ture debut is a brood­ing and wan­der­ing mythopo­et­ic tale. Along­side co-writ­ers Nadia Tre­visan and Alber­to Fasu­lo, the direc­tor fash­ions a 20^th-cen­tu­ry folk­tale ground­ed in deeply reli­gious roots that crowd the coastal com­mu­ni­ty where Aga­ta (Celeste Ces­cut­ti) lives. The con­strict­ing grasp tight­ens when Aga­ta gives birth to a still­born daugh­ter who is tak­en and buried as she sleeps.

Thrown into pained mourn­ing, Aga­ta exhumes the small cof­fin and sets off to a moun­tain sanc­tu­ary that can mirac­u­lous­ly allow her daugh­ter one breath of life in which she can be named, bap­tised and laid to rest beyond a pur­ga­to­ry lim­bo. This indi­vid­ual nar­ra­tive of bereave­ment has the atmos­pher­ic feel of a reli­gious epic, a jour­ney of grandeur laden with breath­tak­ing imagery and pious sym­bol­ism. Dur­ing Agata’s trek, she comes across Lynx (Ond­i­na Quadri), a pale-eyed thief who becomes a wary trav­el­ling part­ner in this jour­ney to salvation.

Fol­low­ing with a hand­held cam­era, Samani cap­tures the emo­tion­al­ly and phys­i­cal­ly exhaus­tive jour­ney the pair embark on with faith­ful atten­tion. With every step, their sto­icism begins to crum­ble as they grow clos­er, con­nect­ed by a shared rejec­tion of their famil­iar com­mu­ni­ties. The ten­ta­tive then intre­pid per­for­mances of Ces­cut­ti and Quadri imbue Small Body with an aug­ment­ing matu­ri­ty where Aga­ta and Lynx stray fur­ther from the image of wom­an­hood they have been cor­ralled into.

For a rumi­na­tion on the plight of lim­bo, Small Body does fall into a lim­bo of its own. At the mid­point, the pace grinds to a halt. Float­ing from vil­lage to vil­lage, the trans­fix­ing inten­si­ty of this per­ilous jour­ney wanes and an intrigu­ing back­sto­ry about Lynx’s ostraci­sa­tion is aban­doned after super­fi­cial explo­ration. Even Aga­ta is side­lined as con­ver­sa­tions between Lynx and vil­lagers are not trans­lat­ed, leav­ing her in the dark.

Light, par­tic­u­lar­ly the absence of it, plays an impor­tant role in Mit­ja Ličen’s cin­e­matog­ra­phy, whether it be the fad­ing of lanterns or dap­pled sun­light dip­ping beyond the hori­zon. Agata’s hope appears like flick­er­ing can­dle­light, the flame danc­ing with the ever-present pos­si­bil­i­ty of plung­ing her into the utter dark­ness and the hope­less­ness of grief. These emo­tion­al swells are embold­ened by com­pos­er Fredri­ka Stahl’s haunt­ing score that har­monis­es bird song, whistling wind, and angel­ic melodies with church-like ric­o­chet­ing acoustics.

It’s an accom­plished direc­to­r­i­al debut, focus­ing on the pow­er of faith and the strength of moth­er­hood to become sym­bi­ot­ic beasts fight­ing for dom­i­nance in its hero’s mind dur­ing her quest for autonomy.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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