Smoke Sauna Sisterhood

Anna Hints' Estonian film is the official entry for the Academy Awards in 2024 for Best Foreign Language Film.

Hints' film can be best described as one of neo-realism in this vain millennial age in which we live. A film depicting the talks that women have in an Estonian sauna, conversing about their lives, the struggles in life from cancer to abuse to dealing with the everyday worry of body image and consciousness. 

One woman is the focal point as a conduit for us the audience, listening rapt to her friends while the women speak to her with just their bodies on display and their heads cut off by the frame, slowly though the frame becomes larger and the women are more seen as the film progresses. The filmmaker is making a statement here that the woman speaking are all women, sometimes unseen by society and yet living with such difficulty because of that same society putting such constraints upon them in terms of expectations when it comes to beauty and ability.

The film is broken up with views of Estonian life in the cold climate, how the sauna is constructed, folk music being performed and viewed. One clever scene, shows how the smoke begins in an empty sauna and how quickly it takes over the space and the women in a sense become hidden; and that what they speak of is private in this confessional booth of a hot room.

The film plays as a metaphor for how women are hidden or shunned from society, yet the sauna is a place to cleanse yourself of the pain and it is a blessing such as baptism was. It is no mistake that the film starts with a mother cradling her new born baby skin to skin.

Ironically, I have got this far into a film review featuring naked females and not mentioned the nakedness. However, there is nothing titillating or violating about the depiction of the female form in this instance, it is an exercise in showing that all forms of female are perfect just with minor imperfections, those same imperfections that certain members of society put far too much emphasis upon. You learn that all women are beautiful in their own right, each body is beautiful and to quote one women's story, 'a human is a human'.

Sweat it out! Sweat it out!

Sweat the pain out!

Out! Out! Out!

There is also something about the sound of natural laughter between a group such as when one woman talks about being on Tinder and dick pics, there is an absurdity to the situation she describes that makes people giggle but the infectious nature of it makes it grow to a chorus of giggles that envelopes you with warmth.

Open, raw and forthright - this is a film to be cherished, embraced and held in close regard. One of the best in recent years that says so much about so many things without a threat of politicisation or grandstanding.

The film has one standout story - a graphic retelling of a rape by one of the women. It is told with such bravery and honesty, that at the ending of the recollection, the rest of the sauna is silent as was this viewer. The mother asks, 'I want to protect my daughter from all this. How do I do that?' and I suppose that is the problem the film is addressing, we have come a long way but still so far to go. The film ends with the women after the sauna walking to a nearby natural waterway, spiritually returning to the calming water for peace, we start our life's journey in the calm water of our mother's womb and seek that tranquility throughout life.

A triumphant film that is revitalising in the power of the human spirit to overcome all the obstacles life throws at you, so often these women are alone in their struggle. However, they are strong and the stories they tell speak volumes of where we are still and how far women still have to go for equality.

SMOKE SAUNA SISTERHOOD is the closing film of this years Fragments Festival at Genesis Cinema, Mile End, London this Sunday 1st October 5pm. Tickets are still available.

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