2023-11-23 01:23:17
Berlin darkness in the sauna. The women sit together. Then they tell. The documentary “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood” portrays several women in a smoke sauna in Estonia. Director Anna Hints lets them talk about their lives in unusually intimate scenes. About growing up in a society in which girls are supposed to be pretty above all else. About their families, illnesses and sexual assaults.
The women run naked through the snow; they have made a hole in the ice cover of the lake. They briefly climb down a ladder into the ice water. The camera images often only show body parts in close-up. Rarely have pictures of a sauna session looked so aesthetic. This also contrasts what the women say.
“After the last operation, I thought, ‘No one can cut out my soul,’” says a woman who lost her uterus, ovary and part of her breast. In between you can see women cutting apart a pork leg and smoking ham.
The film tells of personal experiences that many women know. Because they happened to themselves or to others. “The smoke saunas are places where women find healing,” writes the director. In earlier times, children were even born there and the washing of the dead was carried out. With her film she creates an oppressive and at the same time magical atmosphere. The film screened at the Sundance Festival and is nominated for the European Film Prize.
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