Two female teens hope to seek better opportunities in the body-violating world of modelling in this raw if measured Locarno Golden Leopard winner with strong echoes of Ulrich Seidl and Andrea Arnold.
Review #2,993
Dir. Saule Bliuvaite
2024 | Lithuania | Drama | 99min | 1.37:1 | Lithuanian & English
NC16 (passed clean) for coarse language and nudity
Cast: Vesta Matulyte, Ieva Rupeikaite, Egle Gabrenaite, Giedrius Savickas, Vilma Raubaite
Plot: Dreaming of an escape from the bleakness of their hometown, two teens form a unique bond at a local modelling school, where the promise of a better life pushes girls to violate their bodies in increasingly extreme ways.
Awards: Won Golden Leopard, Swatch First Feature Award & Ecumenical Prize (Locarno)
International Sales: Bendita Film Sales
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Slightly Mature – Exploitation of Bodies; Modelling; Coming-of-Age; Small-Town Stories
Narrative Style: Straightforward
Pace: Slightly Slow
Audience Type: Slightly Arthouse
Viewed: Screener (as part of Singapore Film Society Showcase)
Spoilers: No
Just like how the Locarno Golden Leopard win for A Land Imagined (2018) put Singapore cinema more firmly on the international map, Toxic should do the same for Lithuanian (and the larger Baltic) cinema with exactly the same award.
A debut feature from Saule Bliuvaite, Toxic comes from the tradition of the kind of bleak and depressing European cinema that their Nordic counterparts seem to perfect every year.
Yet, despite its subject matter, which can be uncomfortable (or socially confronting, if reframed in a less pessimistic light), there is still that glimmer of hope that the director affords us and her characters, which never fades away.
With strong echoes of the works of Ulrich Seidl and Andrea Arnold—films such as Models (1999) and Fish Tank (2009)—Toxic explores the body-violating world of modelling as working-class female teens hope to seek better opportunities for themselves.
As a somewhat phoney casting call is advertised promising the wonders of working in Paris and Tokyo, many try their luck, including Marija, who walks with a slight limp, and Kristina, who is game to do what it takes to be selected, even subjecting her fragile body to extremes.
“Confidence is the most important thing.”
In this industrial town that offers little in terms of opportunity, the adults are a reminder of what the youths might become decades down the road.
This is probably why Bliuvaite, with her cinematographer Vytautas Katkus, has shot the film with lots of unnatural overhead space (reminding somewhat of Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida (2013)).
This suggests that the potential to grow, both physically and mentally, is there, yet the tiny frames of these young girls seem to be rendered insignificant by the environment, whether it is the claustrophobic studio where they audition in, or the quiet, desolate extreme wide shots where every house and building becomes emblematic of a working class that has longed accepted their destiny.
Toxic, however, shows us how mature and street-smart these teenagers already are, even if they may indulge in vices like drug use or even some implied form of prostitution to earn an easy wad of cash to bankroll their modelling dreams.
Some might call it peer pressure, but I think it is the sheer desperation to thrive and try. Little do they know that the world outside is infinitely more toxic, crass and ruthless.
Grade: B+
Trailer:
Promo Clip:
Eternality Tan 