Film review: First Woman is a quietly moving story of a person straining to atone

At the DOXA fest, film follows a recovered drug addict struggling to return to the world

DOXA Documentary Film Festival streams First Woman until May 16

MIGUEL EEK’S City of the Dead, a blackly humorous glimpse at mortuary workers, was a modest highlight at DOXA two years ago. Once again Eek wants to immerse the viewer inside institutions we’re more comfortable not thinking about.

“The First Woman” here is Eva, a recovered drug addict in her mid-40s who could be the unglossed heroine in an early Almodóvar movie. She’s waiting to be discharged from Palma de Mallorca’s Psychiatric Hospital when we first meet her, patient but nervy about her looming return to the world. Little moments speak loudest, as when Eva and two friends, one of them schizophrenic, share lucid giggles about their conditions. Eventually she finds herself in a half-way house with a new job as a cleaner.

The background to all of this is a child that Eva hasn’t seen for 15 years. As the film builds to a hoped-for encounter, we witness a shattered person straining to project her wellness, straining to maintain, straining to atone, and we strain along with her. It’s why the film’s final moments hit so hard. There are always a bunch of showy titles at DOXA, but Eva’s quietly moving story deserves your attention too.

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Adrian Mack

Adrian Mack writes about popular culture from his impregnable compound on Salt Spring Island.

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