Reviews: Toxic
Limping society
a review of Toxic by Tobiasz Dunin
Marija (Vesta Matulyte) stands alone in the frame in the locker room. She is wearing a swimsuit as she listens to other girls making fun of her. A steady camera movement shows the bullies and the main character’s fight with them. That’s how the director, Saulė Bliuvaitė, introduces the audience to a solid feature debut that has already taken home the main prize at the Locarno Film Festival.
Written by the director herself, the story focuses on Marija, a teenage girl sent to live with her grandma (Egle Gabrenaite) in a town somewhere in Lithuania. She is not happy there, and wishes to go back home soon. Her hopes are dashed in a telephone conversation with her mother who strictly says: ”There’s no place for you here now”. Because her dressing style and behaviour is so different, she seems out of place in this new environment, a predicament only made worse by her limp, which leads to repeated harassment by a group of local girls led by Kristina (Ieva Rupeikaite).
The evolution of the girls’ relationship – from enemies to friends – is charted slowly, almost cautiously, yet decidedly, as Bliuvaitė doesn’t hold back through some vulgar and suggestive scenes. Apart from the visuals, she also makes good use of the dialogue, which is organic, believable and occasionally funny. Both of these elements show the audience why young girls might be so intent on leaving this place – there is not much to do besides wandering around, smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, and exploring one’s sexuality in an unsafe manner. Mostly left alone while the adults are either absent or inconsiderate of their needs, the girls see a way out in risking their own health to get into a modelling school that looks more than suspicious anyway. It is a depressing and, sadly, one-dimensional representation of life in a small town (or maybe the society at large?).
The cinematography by Vytautas Katkus is slow and precise, making effective use of contrast and crafting beautiful shots – especially the ones set against a backdrop of nuclear power plants, with their picturesque monuments of toxicity. Worth noting is also the soundtrack by Gediminas Jakubka, unfolding through a wide spectrum of songs – from calm yet eerie ambient music to more lively electronica. Although very diverse, the soundtrack is consistent, and aptly underlines the atmosphere of each scene.
After four short films, all of which present characters dealing with harsh reality, Bliuvaitė continues to provide a socially involved experience touching on many topics, like coming-of-age sexual exploration, but unfortunately not deeply enough to provide satisfying commentary. As it often happens in a debut, there are numerous interesting themes, but some of them deserve further exploration. Fortunately, the account of a troubled upbringing in a toxic environment is on point. It clearly illustrates how a society where kids have to take over the role of adults because there are no adults to take care of them, is, in fact, a limping one.
Lithuania’s Next Top Model
A review of Toxic by Pavla Banjac
Struggling their way through infinite empty days in an industrial ghost-town —packed with colorful locals, eating disorders and promised futures —two bright-eyeshadow and short-skirt girls fight their way through the muddy teenage years. Illustrating exactly what this toxic world we all refer to (and live in) truly looks like, Saule Bliuvaite’s coming-of-age drama sheds some light on gloomy and dreary Lithuanian youth forced to grow up over the course of a summer.
Singled out from the start, Marija (Vesta Matulyte), whose already awkward thirteen-year old body is also cursed with a limp, suffers peer violence in her school’s changing room. A physical fight erupts, and the image that follows it —a group of adolescent, perfectly fit female bodies— is what haunts the rest of the film and exactly what a new local modeling agency needs. Beauty. Innocence. Thinness.
It is not long after Marija befriends her bully, the troublesome Kristina (Ieva Rupeikaite), that the girls share a dream of a skinnier future. Brought together by a choice to become models, the girls find themselves stuck in a loop of catwalk practice, forced vomiting and extreme dieting. A perfect routine for the industry. This newly discovered talent (the only one they possess?) gets them the audition, however it also leaves Kristina with a tapeworm egg bought on the dark web inside her. Hungry for promises of New York and Paris, the worm eats her away and her measurements finally go down. The following, successful body-check at the agency is the only time we actually see Kristina truly smile.
Marija doesn’t share the smiles. Stuck in some weird vacuum in her own body, just as the town’s thermometer is stuck at 28 degrees, we always notice her stand out from the group—by virtue of her height, her clothes, her limp. This is exactly when the two friends become inseparable, their fragile relationship beautifully captured by DoP Vytautas Katkus. A hand-held shot of Kristina with her arms tight around Marija’s waist while she bikes them into nowhere, hoping for a better future, is sure to remain on the viewer’s mind.
With the constant threat of the painful tapeworm which doesn’t want to go out, the crippled, Ulrich Seidl-like locals, and the mature, naked, loose-skin and middle-aged bodies in the sauna, Toxic seems to refuse Marija and Kristina their promised future. However, the shot of Marija teaching her neighbor how to smoke, and the one of the girls tenderly holding each other in a grass field near the highway proves us wrong.
Forever bonded by their first joints, first kisses, first traumas, and first true friendship, Marija and Kristina conquer their unfairly rough lives with a tender relationship they both needed. Going back to their everyday routine of wasting away the summer days on Kaunas’ empty streets, the penultimate shot provides an answer to the question asked by one of Marija’s bullies: “Did you come here to make friends or something?” Her relationship with Kristina sticks a middle finger straight to the bully’s face.