Perla

 

Set during the '80s, the film follows Perla, a young slovakian painter, lives in Austria with her teenager daughter Julia, who is also pursuing an artistic career as a pianist. Settled in with an austrian divorcee, the newly built life of the two women is shaken by a phone call: Julia's father appears to be terminally ill, and would like the two of them to visit.

The trope of the return to the roots is perhaps the most common to a certain context of east european cinema, to a point that it becomes more and more oversaturated, especially when it comes in relation to the trauma of the Iron Curtain. Perla's journey seems to indicate exactly that, a rediscovery of personal trauma, an uncovering of a subconscious sort of perturbation. As the journey becomes riskier, she insists on remaining, attempting to piece together something that distresses her - while the initial source of the trauma is very clearly presented early on in a single flashback, it becomes even more evident that there is a general patriarchal atmosphere she is escaping, exemplified in an extremely intense depiction of an easter-time ritual that still today is performed in a very abusive and violent manner.

A persistence of slightly distant shots, often from rooms next door, or from mirror reflections, serves as a visual representation of what is the perspective of the film, slightly external, but not entirely detached. It is tempting to parallel this choice with the filmmaker's peculiar situation, being slovakian-born but living in Austria since childhood, but it should not be the angle for the interpretation of this choice, as much as a will to present the story from an emotionally involved but perhaps unavailable perspective.

Perla's limits are mostly external, related to the context of a storyline that has been frequently explored. That should not however harm a film that, in its apparently contradictory balance between an intimate and distanced approach, does maintan a steadfast stability.

RATING: 3.5/5

Original title: Perla

Directed by: Alexandra Makarová

Country: Austria, Slovakia

Year: 2025

Length:110 min.

Premiere: Rotterdam Film Festival 2025