‘Little Trouble Girls’ review: Erotic Slovenian debut mines fertile teenage terrain

Dir. Urska Djukic. Slovenia/Italy/Croatia/Serbia. 2025. 90mins

The intersection between Catholicism and overheated adolescent hormones has lengthy been a wealthy supply of inspiration for filmmakers. However along with her terrific characteristic debut, Slovenian director Urska Djukic digs deep into this fertile terrain and finds one thing recent. Gauche and naïve 16-year-old Lucija (Jara Sofija Ostan) joins a Catholic highschool choir and is unsettled by discoveries about herself and the dynamics between the opposite ladies. Djukic’s coming of age drama is heady with intertwined sensual and non secular symbolism; the primary price rating and sound design teases out the tangled, conflicting impulses in the direction of Catholic devotion and erotic abandon.

Putting staging and evocative visible poetry

Ljubljana-born Djukic has achieved notable success with a number of shorts, together with the European Movie Award- and Cesar Award-winning Granny’s Sexual Life (2021), and the hanging staging and evocative visible poetry of her characteristic debut secured the image a works in progress post-production award from Les Arcs in 2023. Little Bother Ladies (which takes its title from a Sonic Youth observe that performs out on the movie’s shut) ought to get pleasure from a wholesome competition run following its premiere in Berlin’s Views strand. And the marketable mixture of teenage schoolgirl misadventures and beautiful choral Slovenian folks music ought to catch the eyes (and ears) of arthouse distributors searching for promising new feminine directing voices.

Lucija is an introverted, withdrawn woman who’s vulnerable to drifting off into daydreams – one thing that Djukic deftly demonstrates on the movie’s opening, with a collage of sounds and excessive shut ups of the distractions that declare Lucija’s consideration. Key amongst these distractions are the vividly painted lips of Ana-Marija (Mina Svajger), a assured, fashionable senior who, like Lucija, sings Alto. Considered one of a number of new ladies within the choir, Lucija finds herself standing between Ana-Marija and her good friend Klara (Stasa Popovic) and is caught up within the slipstream of their racy gossip and scandalous confidences.

When the choir travels to a convent in Cividale del Friuli, in northern Italy, for a number of days of intensive rehearsals, sheltered Lucija is flung into candid discussions of durations, sexual exploits and kissing. So as to add to the churning mass of unfamiliar feelings, there are workmen at present renovating the convent and Lucija, who can spend lengthy minutes gazing at simply an olive tree, finds that her consideration is drawn to one of many males particularly. However Lucija’s attraction to the person causes rigidity inside her newly-formed social circle, and he or she finds herself painfully ostracised.

Djukic punctuates the movie with photos of ripeness and fecundity: a shot of Ana-Marija’s belly-button cuts to a shot of a bee circling a plump flower; wild woodlands and water supply secret locations for self-discovery. To atone for sins, the women power themselves to eat bitter unripe grapes as a penance; later, having lastly reached a level of acceptance about her urges, Lucija absent-mindedly gorges on shiny, candy grapes purchased at a market stall.

There are factors, maybe, when the symbolism will get in the best way of the storytelling readability. An exceptional scene wherein the extraordinarily uptight choirmaster (Sasa Tabakovic) targets Lucija, systematically dismantling her confidence and pushing her to breaking level, is adopted by a sequence of fantastical photos: a candle-lit cave, a choir of robed nuns, Lucija, in Vestal white, floating within the river. At first it appears as if she may need opted to finish all of it by chucking herself off Cividale’s Satan’s Bridge. However in truth, as spelled out within the lyrics of the closing tune, Lucija has lastly made peace with each her religion and her sins.