Life in the Albanian mountains offers up two choices. You’re either a man, or you obey one. For anyone who, through the misfortune of birth, fails to qualify for the first option, yet is unwilling to comply with the second, that’s just tough. With one exception. If a woman is willing to forswear love and physical relationships, she can become a sworn virgin, living out life as a man. Laura Bispuri’s sparse, intelligent drama shows the journey to such a decision, and the path back from it.
Bispuri progresses cautiously, never willing to rush either side of her story. Out in Albania, the backdrop is empty and blindingly white. Snow crunches audibly with every footstep, each inhabitant swaddled in think, dour clothes. In this environment are step-sisters Hana and Lila (played as children by Drenica and Dajana Selimaj). Their community is one of a thousand codes, though it can be boiled down to one key mantra. Men are on top. It’s a world where a bullet is presented in a dowry for the husband to use if the wife proves troublesome, a world where merely carrying a rifle, or attempting to chop wood is punishable for a woman.
Now older, and with Alba Rohrwacher and Flonja Kodheli stepping into the roles, both reject this forced choice. But while Lila flees with her secret lover, Hana fears leaving the mountain. She instead decides to adopt the name Mark, remaining as a sworn virgin. It’s a decision she later comes to regret, journeying to Lila’s home in Italy where she gradually sheds Mark, rediscovering the lost Hana.
Rohrwacher is superb as Hana and Mark. The Italian actress, looking a little less skeletal than she did in her award winning turn in Hungry Hearts last year, has a quiet dignity that holds the eye. Achieving an androgynous look, Hana’s determination and Mark’s uncertainty slide across her features, neither one wholly capturing the character. Longing for a return to her original body radiates out as she stands watching Lila’s lithe daughter Jonida (Emily Ferratello) practice her synchronised swimming routine. Early fumbling’s with pool worker Bernhard (Lars Eidinger) are tentative and curious without crossing over into sordid. It’s a much delayed coming of age.
Bispuri’s narrative is not a linear one. She cuts between the past and present building each carefully to a crescendo. Using long takes, she avoids the impression the film is ever rushing. Cutting in this way has its limitations; their Albanian village never fully fleshes out, and Lila’s new life in Italy remains a half-glimpsed secret, but it does allow Sworn Virgin to come full circle on itself.
Bispuri’s film is a patiently balanced look at a rarely seen social practice, underscored by a powerful central performance. This is a man’s world and it’s deeply unfair, but it might just be possible to discover sexuality on your own terms after all.
Director: Laura Bispuri
Stars: Alba Rohrwacher, Flonja Kodheli, Lars Eidinger
Runtime: 90 min
Country: Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Albania, France
Film Rating: 
