Traces | 2022 Warsaw Intl. Film Festival Review
Traces of Sadness: Turić Connects Past & Present Through Anthropology
In her feature debut Traces, Dubravka Turić tells the story of a woman searching for her own identity, but is unable to confront her trauma. The unresolved meaning of the titular ‘traces’ is intertwined with the experiences of a main character who works as an anthropologist and researcher. While she searches for stones the director is investigating her inner self, to ambiguous results. With the narrative firmly centered on the heroine, Turić focuses on her identity crisis amidst the tumult of the city, while offering meaning just outside of it.
Ana Mlikota (Marija Skaricic) is a middle-aged woman living in Zagreb. She tries to hide the vitiligo marks on her body while simultaneously trying decipher the meaning of the traces that people leave to the world through mystical symbols. Losing her sick father and being the last survivor of a huge family of 107 people complicates her relationship with herself and her legacy. The expression “the resting place of souls”, which is used to describe the area of the Mirila district in the archive images she found, also evokes the sense of peace that Ana is longing for. She must face her own past, take actions against her loneliness, and succeed in enjoying life again.
Ana’s relationship with mystical symbols becomes dysfunctional after the death of her father and is only recalled at the end. With the doctor’s warning that stress is only making the vitiligo marks worse, Ana’s war with herself leaves its place to the physical one. The heroine’s identity crisis merges with the film’s stylistic decisions and starts to take on integrity. The gloomy and dark rooms turn into a visual equivalent of Ana’s inner world. While trying to make sense of her findings she learns that ‘the sun is the symbol of a yearning for heaven’, revealing that Ana has lost her paradise. Cinematographer Damjan Radovanovic avoids using light to make sense of the character’s world and finds success with a series of dreary compositions.
Although effective at telling a story through little dialogue and with a focus on repeated shots of symbolic objects from Ana’s life, the film fails in describing the feelings and experiences of the character by revealing them only in layers. The minimalist acting of Marija Skaricic manages to integrate with the minimalist concept of the film and comes to the director’s rescue, alongside superheroes like Zagor, Bruce Lee, and others who provide snapshots from Ana’s childhood, helping to tell the story through nostalgia.
As the film draws to a close, it deals with the difficulties of being a woman through cliches – proving herself, seeking happiness – which is hardly enough to give the audience a new perspective on the subject. The best that Turić’s story has to offer dissipates around the halfway point; all that’s left is the yearning for a better film.
Reviewed on October 19th at the 2022 Warsaw International Film Festival – Competition 1-2 Section. 98 mins. Part of the The Fipresci Warsaw Critics Project.
★★½/☆☆☆☆☆
