Director: Urška Djukić
Stars: Jara Sofija Ostan, Mina Švajger, Saša Pavček
For Slovenian filmmaker Urška Djukić and her focal study character Lucia (Jara Sofija Ostan), sensuality and divinity go hand-in-hand, coalescing here into a rich matrix of teenage awakening that unravels over a handful of days at a convent visited by a Catholic all-girls choir. Lucia is 16, doe-eyed, relatively sheltered and hasn’t even had her first period yet, making her insecure that she’s an imposter. Not really a woman yet. Where most of her catty and capricious friends are happy to chatter of their menstruation and early trysts with boys, Lucia is quiet. Her closest friend in the choir, Ana-Maria (Mina Švajger), is keen to coax a more extrovert persona out of her. A gang of builders working in close proximity give the girls motive and opportunity to test the waters of flirtation.
Taking it’s name from the deeply cool Sonic Youth song (which plays over the end titles), Djukić’s Little Trouble Girls belongs to a long lineage of coming-of-age movies that attempt to bottle those trepidatious early feelings of embarrassment and arousal that must inevitably be navigated. In Ostan Djukić has found an incredibly watchable lead. The young actor has a similar face and baring to a young Adèle Exarchopoulos, and her portrayal of Lucia feels founded in a sensitive – and sensuous – reality.
Totems of Catholicism are instilled in the very geography of the Slovenian countryside as much as in the hearts of the young women who make up the film’s focus, and the convent setting opens up plenty of opportunities for Djukić to ruminate on the intersections of eroticism and spirituality. When the girls quiz one of the sisters over the question of celibacy, the way the woman speaks of God’s presence is openly erotic and evocative of penetration. Elsewhere, as Lucia and Ana-Maria circle the perimeters of queer experimentation, Ana-Maria insists that they suffer for their sins; proffering her friend a sour grape to chew on as penance for their hormones. Then there’s the prominent statue of the Virgin Mary which has lost one of its hands in an accident; hands being the most tactile and versatile body parts for erotic exploration.
The oldest and perhaps keenest progenitor for Little Trouble Girls might be Leontine Sagan’s landmark 1931 film Mädchen in Uniform, which also catalogued sexual awakening among an all-girls class. Where the films differ is in the dynamics between teacher and pupil. There, a chaste romance across borders plays as a shocking taboo. Here, the girls’ conductor (Saša Tabaković) is a frustrated and impotent patriarchal figure, whom one might initially be inclined to mock. Lucia makes the terrible mistake of confessing a private suspicion to him. She is then singled-out and punished in front of her peers in a tightly-controlled sequence that recalls the bolshy bullying of J.K. Simmons’ Fletcher in Whiplash. That this sequence plays entirely on Ostan’s face only underscores her command of the camera at such a young age.
The finale here teeters on the brink of something incredibly ambiguous. Djukić threatens the prospect of a rash, suicidal response from Lucia. But instead we’re taken on what feels like a dreamy spiritual epiphany into vaginal caves to find solace and sanctuary in womanhood. Coming out the other side, Lucia enjoys picking from a bunch of ripe and sweet grapes bought at a market stall, indicating to the audience that she has made a number of choices, and that opting out of indoctrination and prioritising life’s passions is – in this environment – both a radical and feminist act.
For the most part as light as a sun-dappled memory – with it’s smartphones its a resolutely modern film, but it has a quality of nostalgia about it – Little Trouble Girls is gorgeously lensed by cinematographer Lev Predan Kowarski and comes wrapped up in a soundtrack of feminine a capella harmonies. It’s a bundle of mini-epiphanies on a road to adulthood, all flushed cheeks and awkward smiles that hide an unfurling sense of inner discovery. For a feature debut, the confidence and restraint are incredibly impressive, but what lingers is the sense of warmth and humanity.
The Lost Highway Hotel 