Teodora Sinner | Review

For her second documentary feature (and first solo), Anca Hirte gives us an intimate look at cloistered Romanian nuns in Teodora Sinner, an exercise in the bucolic preparation of one young woman about to enter into a marriage with god. Related to us with a sort of numbing precision as it mines the most banal details, scraped together to make this occasion as momentous as the ceremonial tradition enacted for two humans, Hirte’s rather thinly drawn subject matter outstays its welcome before the midway point.

We learn quickly that the taking of one’s vows is a serious subject indeed, and young nuns aren’t allowed to take them at will, they must be deemed ready. One such nun is the focus of the film, Teodora, who has waited 11 years for the Mother Superior to allow her to take her vows. We witness her speak about this much anticipated goal with other sisters that are waiting for the same blissful moment, and her elders, one of whom is anointed to share the responsibility for Teodora’s soul by the Mother Superior. There are endlessly repetitive conversations held about the ritual, what must be said, what must be worn, what happens when, and most importantly, how a name will be selected for her. Teodora is extremely adamant that she keep her name (apparently the Mother Superior has the power to choose a different, perhaps more fitting name, upon the marriage to Jesus). Thankfully, with lots of whispered exclamations concerning praying to the saint for which she was named (Theodora is the Patron Saint of Churches, sainted for her overzealousness concerning the restoration of icons as objects of veneration), she gets to keep it.

Cinematic auteur Cristian Mungiu’s latest masterpiece, Beyond the Hills, takes this same subject matter and creates a damning film experience concerning the dangerous ignorance of religious fervor, focusing on a friendship between a young nun and her childhood friend. Teodora Sinner feels like the background research those actresses would have undergone in preparation, thus making the documentary feel like an extra feature, too dry and resolutely opaque to stand on its own. There’s nothing innately wrong with Hirte’s filmmaking abilities, and to be honest, the first thirty minutes or so of Teodora Sinner are intriguing, especially a conversation between one elder sister and three younger ones, where the elder relates a time concerning a law that had been passed demanding all monks and nuns under the age of 50 to leave their churches and get married. “I would have rather died in the forest,” she declares several times.

The remainder of the film, while giving us an awful amount of close-up shots of moist nun lips uttering ecstatic words about God like a non-reciprocated sexual word jubilee, basically consists of endless verbal reinforcement of what the vows mean and how sacred this ceremony is. From the cutting of hair, to this little step, that little step, the danger of creasing clothes, all culminates into one endless scene where we witness Teodora eat some crunchy vegetables, which, truth be told, shows the vacant nun masticating as blankly as bovine creatures chew cud.

Lincoln Center Series: New Romanian Cinema