Director: Dina Duma
Writers: Dina Duma and Martin Ivanov
Stars: Antonija Belazelkoska, Mia Giraud, Marija Jancevska
Synopsis: The friendship of two adolescent girls is threatened the moment they have to face the dire repercussions of their manipulative behaviour.
There are a couple of coming-of-age stories in this year’s lineup for the Festival de Cine Europeo de Puerto Rico (FCEPR). Whether it is from their main slate (Secaderos) or their presented classics (Rosetta), there are plenty of variations of these types of narratives at the festival, particularly ones that center around women. But there’s a specific one that doesn’t match the others in the selection: Dina Duma’s feature-length debut, Sisterhood. Due to its rash and oblique development, the aforementioned film reaches a state of narrative obliviousness where the viewer gets lost in the smoke and mirrors of the story, building tension and immediately taking it back – replacing it with a scene that reaches an unrealistic persona. You get the point of Duma’s picture, but the messaging gets across disjointed and hurried instead of patient and delicate.
Sisterhood centers around two teenagers, Jana (Mia Giraud) and Maya (Antonija Belazelkoska), as they experience an array of scenarios that lie between the stages of childhood and adulthood. The film sets itself in North Macedonia, during a period of their youth where they see sex as the dividing line between these two phases. But that isn’t the only division that arises; there’s also the division between shame and reputation, remorse and prestige. With the focus on social media and its effect on people’s perception, these ideas of how these teens see one another take a destructive turn as peer pressure and bullying take center stage. This is how Jana and Maya’s friendship or dynamic works in the latter half of Sisterhood, where the former harasses the latter – to a menacing degree – to keep a secret that will ruin their lives for good.
While the story might be centered far away from your hometown, it is highly probable that it has been repeated in your local neighborhood (at least to some extent). They used to do everything together. They were great friends, but it never felt like the two of them were BFFs completely. Their personas are very different from one another. And Jana’s occasionally erratic and dominant behavior forces Maya to follow her steps, even though she doesn’t want to. However, some good comes out of this relationship; when Maya’s father leaves the family, Jana comforts her. It is in these early scenes where the film is most effective, in the contrast of these two friends’ personalities and how each one handles and perceives a situation. You sense the harshness of how teenagers manage loneliness, separation, rejection, and sexual awakenings.
Dina Duma, with the help of cinematographer Naum Doksevski, focuses on the characters’ body language and facial expressions to let these emotions linger and increase their effect. The actresses, Giraud and Belazelkoska, also do great work capturing the essence of these dilemmas and their equally heartbreaking climaxes. Being their acting debuts, they managed to impress. Every countenance and expression shown in the first half of Sisterhood feels genuine and authentic. You genuinely care and feel sorry for them, both in their clash against abandonment (hence their constant need to fit in) and the error of their ways, specifically Maya, who often separates herself from the world and deals with her problems alone. We see the film through her eyes as she’s set aside due to her shyness and innocence.
You also notice how the other teens just want to escape their realities by constantly partying and doing rebellious antics, like smoking a cigarette, even on school grounds, and drinking the night away. You sense an underpinning sadness even in their “happiest” of moments. As soon as the party is over and head home, you feel their unhappiness oozing as they open the door. This is their escape, and, in a way, the only form of being free from the draining atmosphere of their homes is through that riotous connection riddled with defiance. That’s why Maya holds Jana dear, the only person willing to take her on that journey. She doesn’t like that type of lifestyle; Maya just wants to perceive that sense of connection and feel that she belongs.
In one of those parties, the eventual and heartbreaking fracture between her and Jana begins. One detestable act by Jana, which she forces upon Maya, causes the first crack. How Dina Duma handles that deed causes Sisterhood to slowly feel detached from what could happen in real life. This ruins the delicateness and genuine feeling it built up until that point. Sisterhood shows how quickly relationships between teenagers can break, using bodies of water as a motif for this fluctuation of bonds in the modern era. Dina Duma’s main idea works throughout the film’s entirety. However, it doesn’t feel natural when she starts to build tension between Maya and Jana, separating itself from the intertwining of fragility and harshness.
The second half of the film is dedicated to the rupture between these two teens, and it all feels so out of place as if there was another picture in mind. As the tension keeps boiling up, the more ridiculous the narrative decisions get, to the point where it sometimes becomes laughable. And it is a shame since the first act hinted at an exploration of its title. In addition, most dilemmas meant to move the plot forward feel rushed and careless. You never get the chance to understand the reasoning behind Maya and Jana’s actions that caused this turmoil. Once the tension goes somewhere, the film ends abruptly with an altercation between Maya and Jana.
It leaves a sour aftertaste because not only is it dissatisfying, but also weirdly inappropriate in terms of its themes. After all this time seeing them avoiding each other, only talking to each other via text, this scene that’s supposed to contain the dramatic crux of this story ends up having no subtext or significance since Duma leaves us with nothing. The two former friends are left adrift in a sea of guilt, with the screen slowly turning blue. It is a great image to end up with, yet you feel zero emotion due to the poor structure and mishandling of the story.
