Review by
Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Laura Samani
Starring: Celeste Cescutti, Ondina Quadri
Writer/director (with co-writing credits to Marco Borromei and
Elisa Dondi) Laura Samani’s debut opens upon a windswept
beach panorama, evocatively lit with the muted colour palette of a Dutch
master. In a tribal formation women process the sand, with point being
taken by teenage Agata (Celeste Cescutti). The women chant, and
circle the pregnant Agata, eventually anointing her among the elemental
signifiers of rushing water and piercing winds. The visually sumptuous
opening is a chthonic display of folklore, superstition and female energy:
a shorthand pledge of Small Body’s intents. When Agata returns to the huts and hovels of the late 19th
century village, in a violent and protracted scene, she gives birth: the
child is stillborn.
Speaking of superstitions, up until very recently the Catholic Church had
a really mad one. The concept of Original Sin dictated that anyone who
passed on unbaptised would end up in Limbo, which meant any child who died
before baptism would be eternally doomed to be excluded from the full
blessedness of the beatific vision. This is rural Italy, on the cusp of
the modern era, and so belief in religious dogma is dominant, but at the
same time, the old ways linger. Hearsay suggests a sanctuary, far away
from the village, where children can be brought back to life for the space
of one breath - enough to be baptised and sent on their way to heaven. Her
husband is disinterested (this is a film where men are simply practical
contributors within various matriarchies), and so Agata alone, still torn
apart from the birth, packs her baby in a crate and sets off for the
mountains to seek redemption.
What follows is a beautiful picaresque of rural Italy, of landscapes
untouched by encroaching industry, with the celluloid embroidered by
carefully curated period detail. In an imposing wide shot, we see our
protagonist taken across grey waters in a Stygian tableau: this is going
to be a voyage of life and death ramifications. Agata falls in with Lynx
(played by trans actor Ondina Quadri), a beautiful boy who was born
a girl, and who has been ostracised by his family for cross dressing (the
explicitly contemporaneous aspects of this storyline are handled deftly,
and never seem incongruous). Lynx has not seen the sea, while Agata has
never seen snow - cute! Along the way, the two get into scrapes with a
highway robber, and battle the elements, all the while dealing with the
lingering abjections of Agata’s post birth body.
Small Body is ostensibly a film about determination, and
female strength. Cescutti is a formidable, credible presence, and Agata is
a character we root for throughout, with Quadri providing an effective
foil to her closed stoicism. Aside from its worthy themes, however, the
main draw for Small Body is its gorgeous mise-en-scene, and
realisation of a spectacular and dangerous European past. The balance of
visual pleasure and the exploration of ideas concerning gender in the film
is lopsided, however. About those wonderful costumes... for a film which
opens with a poetry of elements, and emphasises its characters’
relationships with nature throughout, the regalia is kept pristine for
most of the running time - nary a speck of dirt to be seen. This is
perhaps a telling metaphor for Small Body. While visually appealing, Samani’s film often skirts around the
thematic concerns suggested by the film’s striking opening, offering an at
times superficial experience.
Small Body is in UK cinemas from
April 8th.
