The Hill Where Lionesses Roar | 2021 Warsaw International Film Festival Review
Roar of a Generation: Bajrami Looks Beyond the Hills of Kosovo
It’s 2021 in a small town situated somewhere in Kosovo and yet everything feels decades old with the rustically designed interiors and the traditional families who occupy them, and the gravel roads on which outdated car models sporadically pass by. Despite appearances, there is a glimpse of modernity in this godforsaken place. Three independent and progressive thinking girls embrace a way of life where they refuse to wear bras, fight with local boys and oppose their parents’ rigid worldview. They dream of going to college, living in a bigger city, seeing the world that lies beyond the hills.
Luàna Bajrami opens her debut feature The Hill Where Lionesses Roar with a sequence perched high up on those hills, where Qe (Flaka Latifi), Li (Era Balaj) and Jeta (Uratë Shabani) shout at the top of their lungs. It is the roar of an entire generation of young people stuck in the smothering back-alleys of the Balkans. Finding its way across the hills to an airspace of modern life far from the laws of religion and patriarchy can be challenging, especially for young girls. Bajrami insists on filming the land, not just the nature but also its national heritage. She discovers a paradox – land can offer a magnificent view, but at the same time, it can block it with the walls of conservative tradition.
Qe, Li and Jeta try to escape those walls by applying to college, only to be promptly rejected. The roaring then turns into action – they rob a store and enjoy the spoils of freedom that can only be short-lived. The girls embark on a nothing-to-lose vacation which Bajrami captures with a handheld camera fixated on spontaneous images of beauty. Combining images of the protagonists with the beauty of the moments they spend together, the fragmented editing style contributes to an ever-present feeling of freedom. Unfortunately, these kind of stylistic choices put Bajrami in an ethically quandary. A woozy, dreamlike representation of girls who actually commit a crime and go on a leisure getaway romanticizes their freedom instead of morally questioning it. Void from this flightpath are family members attempting to find them and the authorities attempting to locate them — so when vandalism is rampant anarchy reigns, everything becomes meaningless and destructive.
As Bajrami struggles to find meaning, The Hill Where Lionesses Roar ends rather abruptly. There isn’t any sense of dramatic resolution when the girls return to town; the fuss and jarred montage just raise more questions. It is the ultimate payoff for a film concerned with poetic atmosphere and political context, but uninterested in tackling the problematic aspects of her subject and achieving complex characterization. It is a film of heavenly beauty, a poem to the lost youth of the Balkans. And yet, just like its characters, one that lacks the required maturity to venture beyond the hills.
Reviewed on October 13th at the 2021 Warsaw International Film Festival – Competition 1-2 Section. 83 mins. Part of the The Fipresci Warsaw Critics Project.
★★★/☆☆☆☆☆
