In Peter Weir’s enigmatic masterpiece “Picnic at Hanging Rock” (1975) and Carol Morley’s alluring drama “The Falling” (2014), the central subject has been some form of psychological outbreak (or mass hysteria) which has led to disappearance, fainting spell or seizure epidemic among adolescent girls. While these films brooded upon the mystery, it didn’t deliver any exact answers as the narrative treats the transcendental occurrence as an allegory for teen or preteen angst. Carol Morley in a long article in the ‘Guardian’ discusses what made her choose this particular subject. She explains how this bizarre event has actually happened/happening all over the world, the spell mostly experienced by young school girls. The director of “The Falling” cites the book ‘Mass Hysteria in Schools’, which details the similar cases around the world since 1566. From a remote town school in Northern Colombia to schools in Belgium, and Japan, hysterical blackouts, fainting and seizures have been reported. Psychologists have flown down to these parts, while the water supplies to canteen’s coke machine are blamed as the primary causes. There was an even a British Medical Journal titled “Chronic Epidemic of Hysterical Blackouts in a Comprehensive School”. These episodes are now generally called as ‘mass psychogenic outbreaks’ and prominent psychologists call it: ‘part of human condition, which rises from need for a sense of belonging and connection’.
Are these behaviors, among girls approaching puberty is an
escape from peer pressure or tensions of surrounding atmosphere? I mean a
young, gifted girl is in constant negotiation with her identity and body. The
young female is figuring out who are they & what they want as some form of
opposing social context is pushed upon them. May be it’s best to allow the
qualified people to provide an answer to this mystery, since I seem to ruminate
on this subject in the most boring manner. Let me get to the reason I am
writing this review. Former NYU film student Anna Ross Holmer’s “The Fits”
(2015) is yet another distinct film that zeroes-in on the wave of out-of-body
fits among an isolated group of young black females. Anna states that she
stumbled upon the idea for this film when reading a book on medieval history,
in which a long passage is devoted to convulsive fits that afflicted entire
townships. Like the two movies, I have previously mentioned “The Fits” too
doesn’t fit into the narrow label of ‘coming-of-age’. Part of the reason is
that the film avoids the bear traps which come along with such themes. It could
be seen as a nuanced study of the physical and emotional transitions
experienced by an 11 year old girl. In its minimal 69 minute running time, “The
Fits” keeps the grown-ups out of the frame (both in metaphorical and literal
sense). The silent, brooding black faces of a pre-teen girl is at perfect
focus, giving us a sense that we are not just peering at her face, but also at
her perplexed search for inner identity.
Right from the first frame, where Anna Ross Holmer’s 11 year
old protagonist Toni (Royalty Hightower – what an apt name for a girl who
offers a towering performance), practices her sit-ups, we witness an atmosphere
that is cleanly demarcated by gender boundaries. Toni is in a boxing gym with
her elder brother Maine (Da'Sean Minor). While not being a sparring partner for
her brother, Toni peers through the glass window of another big hall in the
school, opposite the gym. In that hall, the school’s all-girls dance team
‘Lionesses’ practice their rapid dance moves. Both sides involve physical self,
although the dancing is more a group activity (“Stop thinking like an
individual and start thinking like a team” says the dance coach) than
showcasing individual bravado in boxing. Wearing a grey hoodie uniform of
boxing gym, Toni watches in awe at rhythmic clapping and moves of few alpha
females in the team. There’s a beautiful shot of Toni, slowly walking with grey
hoodie covering her head in a narrow corridor, as other girls in glitzy dance
suits run around her, showcasing her feelings of isolation. But, Toni isn’t
bullied or ostracized as we usually see in films dealing with these subjects.
Toni just doesn’t look like the girl who is into dancing. She strikes
friendship with a energetic kid Bianca aka Beezy, who takes one look at Toni’s
strong arms and shoots up a nickname ‘Guns’.
There’s no documentary-like portrait of the inner-city
community. We hear Toni’s brother mentioning about their working mother (may be
a single mom) and on other fleeting occasion, we hear that Beezy is with a foster
mom. The entire narrative unfurls in the dressing rooms, dance halls, gyms,
and in some dilapidated neighborhood areas that we don’t get a full sense of
who Toni is or what she wants. By keeping away the adult or the atmosphere
riddled with grown-ups, director Holmer is able to solely focus on the girl’s
inner emotional issues. As Toni tries to be part of the tournaments-winning
dance team, the first of epidemic seizures afflicts the Lionesses team’s
captain ‘Legs’. Soon, the other leading dancers of the team fall into similar
kind of spell. The hysterical outbreak actually makes the young girls to
exhibit desire for experiencing such a spell and to be one of the pack. This puts more burdens on Toni’s already pressurized
feelings regarding self-identity. Of course, the premise doesn’t offer any
answers (and even its questions are little opaque) or heighten the dramatic
quotient to incorporate cliched ideas. Just sit calmly and peer at the walls
that around Toni that create, reinforce, and caves in as she learns the ebb and
flow of her new social world.
“The Fits” will be definitely disliked by those expecting a
plot to be narrated than merely suggested. The abandonment of straightforward
storytelling method to include series of evocative, transcendent images will
test the patience of viewers, despite the scant running time. I do think that
the script (by Saela Davis, Holmer & Lisa Kjerulff) is sometimes too
elusive to become disengaging. But, for the most part I was enamored by
cinematic poetry (especially the last fifteen minutes was visualized in a
graceful manner) and by the unusually vibrant presence of Royal Hightower as
Toni. The journey of Hightower who makes the baby steps in dance to evolve
being a refined dancer serves as a parallel for her nuanced emotional turns. It
is a treat to watch her stoically peering right back at us or when she fiercely
jabs at empty spaces. The other marvelous female cast belongs to talented
dancing outfit from Cincinnati known as ‘Q-Kidz Dance Team’. Cinematographer
Paul Yee and director Holmer often places Toni in bare setting that offer
perfect symmetry. The visual compositions are interested in capturing the
movements, not just the dance moves, but also motions of girls running down the
corridors or when the swarm of confused girls gathered around a girl writhing
under a seizure spell. Fascinatingly, these movements don’t ogle on the girls’
physicality and even the dance movements are filmed in an elegant manner that’s
missing in all those music videos. At the end of the film’s striking denouement
sequence, the question that will linger is that what caused this weird
epidemic. As I mentioned, there are no answers, but looking at the smiling face
and flawless dance moves of Toni, we can understand how we all want a group to
belong or be part of, however strange the ritual of passage is.
Trailer
“The Fits” (72 minutes) is an idiosyncratic indie cinema
that’s a pleasure to watch, even though the quaint narrative becomes
increasingly opaque and inscrutable. The physical and emotional passage into
puberty is dealt here with thoughtful visuals and very less words.
★★★★
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