Review by
Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Lillah Halla
Starring: Ayomi Domenica Dias, Loro Bardot, Grace Passô, Gláucia Vandeveld, Rômulo Braga, Larissa
Siqueira
Everyone's a fucking expert. Remember how so many people abruptly became
boxing punters when Algerian female welterweight Imane Khelif beat Anna
Luca Hamori to clinch a medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics; when they
precipitously revealed a previously unspoken but apparently sincere and
deep interest in American college swimming competitions regarding the
validity of Lia Thomas' success? How these otherwise fairly niche,
intermittently broadcast sports were, for some reason, all of a sudden so
dear to the hearts of certain gobshites? Of course, it is women that such
febrile expertise is really fixated upon. Women's bodies, women's
independence and how women are defined within a patriarchal culture. The
supposed sanctity of sport is a poor excuse for their grubby misogyny. In
the recent American election, the rights or otherwise of women were a
significant point of contention, and during this transition period the
Republicans
are at odds
over the issue of abortion. Infamously, during the campaign a vocal
portion of the president elect's support adopted the slogan "Your body, my
choice" as a rallying cry against women. For these people, female autonomy
itself is proscribed.
In Brazil, where Lillah Halla's (writing duties shared with
María Elena Morán) incendiary debut Power Alley is
set, the situation is even more dire. Abortion is effectively outlawed as
a crime which entails up to three years imprisonment, a cruel and
impractical punitive measure which further complicates potentially
difficult situations (of course, I have never been in the position, but
I'm fairly sure that no one "sets out" to undergo the unfortunate last
resort of abortion).
Case in point is Sofia (Ayomi Domenica), a 17-year-old who is
flourishing in her volleyball team, and is just on the cusp of being
offered a scholarship when she discovers that she is pregnant. It is
instructive of Halla that her narrative doesn't disclose who the father
is, or the circumstances in which the deed was done, because, irl, we're
not privy to this sort of information and, the film implies, individual
contexts shouldn't make a difference anyway. Instead, in this film, which
is chiefly concerned with the reality of female biology and the ensuing
body politic, the plot point is gradually related through discussions of
missed periods and of Sofia urinating on a pregnancy test before we
witness specifically shot scenes of discomfiting examination.
Power Alley's themes of female physicality are profoundly established in an early
scene of a post-match shower, which seems a deliberate riposte to the
iconic soft-focus scares within
Carrie's similar environs. Here the nudity is matter of fact and glorious, not
communicated by the winnowed and invasive male gaze of its forbearer;
likewise, menses are to be celebrated here, as one player smears blood
across her face as war paint and teases the other girls with her red
fingers. The team's relationship is intensely tactile as they hug,
playfight, and pose for group selfies which exaggerate their varied
morphologies. Power Alley joins an increasing zeitgeist of
2024 wherein female creators essay the female body via an explicitly
female point of view (cf. the year's most most discoursed movie,
The Substance
and, in other media, the great Eliza Clark's dark, witty and superlative
collection of body horror short stories, 'She's Always Hungry').
Again, no expert, but I'd imagine it's pretty difficult to play volleyball
with a bump the size of the ball under your vest. This is something which
male athletes never have to worry about (in the same way as we are not
concerned with being either pregnant or judged for the condition. Why
don't prospective presidential candidates propose policy on vasectomies,
or a male contraceptive pill?), but could well cancel out the exotic
prospects of Sofia's scholarship and its potential to elevate her from her
humble circumstances. I am not a sports person at all, but what I respect
about it is the meritocracy: ability, persistence, tenacity; these are the
deciding factors in an athlete's success, qualities which Sofia has in
spades. Unfortunately, Brazilian law limits her prospects and teenage
Sofia is at a crossroads. Does she terminate, and if so, how? Matters are
complicated when other parties, those experts again, involve themselves in
the situation. Sofia becomes a pariah in the community and the ruling body
of the sport disallow her from playing.
Halla films this with a palpable urgency and the cast perform as if their
lives depended on it. This is a righteously angry film, which is energised
by its rhetoric. Recurring motifs of piss, blood and sweat slick the
mise-en-scene, a persistent reminder of the body's slippery realities and
a retort to typically airbrushed representations of women (at one point
the girls urinate off a bridge, shouting "golden shower" to anyone caught
below: charming!). This physicality extends to a sex scene between Sofia
and her new girlfriend, filmed with a delicate eroticism which suggests
that the apparent fluidity of the teams' sexuality is another cheerful
aspect of their self-generated freedoms. The chaos is infectious; you feel
a part of it, and hope for an ending which is, if not happy, then at least
one which is less painful and penal for Sofia. In this unflinching
narrative with its real life correlations, such expectations are unlikely:
just this month, Brazil's Constitution, Justice and Citizenship Commission
discussed proposals
which would further limit access
to abortion in the country.
Power Alley is in UK/ROI cinemas
and on VOD from November 29th.
