Filthy ( Tereza Nvotova, 2017): Czech Rebublic

Review by Breana Jimenez Viewed at The Santa Barbara Film Festival, 2018.

This movie starts with Lena laying down with electrodes being taped to her head and her counting backwards. The fear is apparent as it’s a long take of her face, the sound of her heavy breathe is the loudest thing we hear. It then cuts to her dancing in a night club happy and having fun. So what happened to Lena? What lead her to the first scene? This movie draws you in immediately, it may be hard to watch at times but you are engaged and trying to piece together the story.

I don’t think anyone is ever ready to watch a film like this. It deals with the very heavy topic of sexual assault.  Tereza Nvotova uses certain techniques over and over again which felt like a combination of style and showing the tole of the assault, especially since most of the pain is in Lena’s mind . The use of sound and long takes accompanied with close ups show us the metal tole, especially because Lena has very minimum dialogue. This reflects how rape in cultures is rarely talked about but also the low percentage of victims that talk about their assault. A lot of the pain is internalized which is used a lot in this film.

The actual assault in this film is quite graphic ( so a warning to anyone with personal experience). It is a long take that last the duration of the assault, all you want to do is look away, uncomfortable long. At one point it almost looks like Lena is looking at the camera seeking help. Finally it’s over and she lays there completely broken and violated.

This movie goes through the entire process of a trauma like rape. Lena before, during and after. She will never be the same but in the last scenes we see that perhaps there is a future where it won’t control her life. This is an important topic that Nvotova dove into and her execution was poignantly beautiful.