Film review: Smoke Sauna Sisterhood immerses viewer in age-old Estonian ritual
Intimate and sensuous, documentary lets us in on women’s secrets that resound around the world
Estonian women take a plunge into an icy lake as part of an age-old sauna ritual.
Smoke Sauna Sisterhood screens at VIFF Centre from December 15 to 30
ESTONIAN DOCUMENTARY Smoke Sauna Sisterhood ranks as one of the most sensuous films in recent memory. In this intimate portrayal of the Võro community’s UNESCO-protected sauna rituals, you can almost smell the cedar boughs the women whisk on each other’s bodies, hear the steam hissing off the fire-heated rocks, and feel the brusk scrubbing of their cloths on each other’s naked backs.
Director Anna Hints grew up with the practice, and here finds intimate access to a group of women who go through the slow, beautiful process of drawing well water, chopping wood, stoking a fire, and gathering through the seasons for the unique ritual in a lakeside, moss-roofed cabin. In the winter, they even run out to that frozen lake—a rectangle carefully carved out of its icy surface—for a sub-zero plunge. Adding to the atmosphere—and this being Estonia—singing also plays a big part in the tradition.
But this is no purely anthropological study of an age-old ritual. In the dark, small confines of the sauna cabin, the women find a safe place to not only purge toxins through their pores but share some of their deepest secrets. Covering a range of ages, they discuss everything from stillbirth to sexual assault and body shaming to dick pics with unnerving honesty.
What’s most affecting is the way that Hints shoots all this: instead of the camera focusing on the speaker, it locks on the fire-lit face of an intent, stoic listener. The lens tracks across limbs, breasts, and buttocks, all lit like Rembrandt paintings. At other moments we watch only the surreal coils of steam and smoke in the dark. Hints interweaves scenes from the confined sauna with the beauty of the Estonian north, wind rustling fall leaves, clouds moving across the sky, and fog cloaking a thick forest.
Watching the film in the dark of a theatre, you're lulled into feeling like you're in this tight, private space, sweating alongside these women. This initially gentle film may catch you off guard, making you a confidant to women's experiences that are intense, heartbreaking—and, unfortunately, relatable around the world. But the film's power comes from witnessing a kind of healing in action. What Hints manages to show in this Estonian Academy Award entry is the mystical quality of a sauna tradition that "cleans" not just bodies, but souls.
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