Director: Urška Djukić

Starring: Jara Sofija Ostan, Mina Švajger, Saša Tabaković, Nataša Burger

Taking its title from a Sonic Youth song, which also features in the film, Slovenian director Urška Djukić’s debut is a swooning and intense study of a sixteen-year-old Slovenian girl struggling with her burgeoning sexuality. Lucia (Ostan) is the latest addition to an all-girls school choir. Nervous and slightly square with her sensible attire and strict Catholic background, Lucia nevertheless attracts the attention of, and is befriended by, Anna-Maria (Švajger), the most popular and sexually confident member of the choir. Lucia begins to experience intense feelings as her hormones kick in on a choir visit to a rural convent in Northern Italy for rehearsals. Noting that Lucia is transfixed by the most handsome and muscular of the builders who are doing restoration work on the convent, Anna-Maria encourages her friend to take action. Working with cinematographer Lev Predan Kowarski, Djukić conjures up a deliriously sensual and tactile presentation of Lucia’s surroundings, imbuing the bucolic scenes in particular with an almost mythical quality - the worker Lucia obsesses over even resembles a satyr. The script is empathetic and even-handed: Anne-Marie is not some stock ‘Mean Girls’ type, evidenced when she sticks up for Lucia when the latter confesses to her guffawing classmates that she has yet to have her period, while as Lucia, newcomer Ostan turns in an admirably self-contained but emotive and sympathetic performance. The choir’s performance of trad Slovenian folk songs is suitably ethereal and lovely.

David Willoughby

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