Lucija (Jara Sofija Ostan) could be easy to overlook, rarely separate from the rest of the young women in her choir who are on a spring retreat to a convent in Slovenia in “Little Trouble Girls.” She doesn’t call attention to herself in expressing her boredom during a Bible reading as others do, twirling their hair or yawning demonstrably, but she will disengage, letting her mind wander out to the construction workers out in the courtyard working up a sweat or consider if those immediately around her are having the same sultry thoughts when she should be studying or singing. A tight frame will often reinforce the fact she can’t stray too far either physically or mentally at 16, subject to the same social group for at least another couple years whether she likes it or not, and disappearing into the crowd is a more comfortable option than standing out when it’ll amount to the least amount of being bothered.
Yet Lucija can’t help but be unforgettable by the end of Urška Djukić’s exceptional character study, a sexually charged coming-of-age tale that’s bound to stir as much passion amongst an audience as the teenager starts experiencing for herself. The first-time feature director has worked with a variety of different forms for her shorts, moving between fictional narratives and animated documentary, and the diverse body of work no doubt led to how remarkably she’s able to get inside Lucija’s head, summoning all the different senses as she spends the spring blossoming on her own. Although she’s teased by a classmate about not being a woman yet when she still hasn’t had her period, Lucija can take comfort in another, Ana-Marija (Mina Svajger) showing up in her defense and the two develop a close friendship that verges on something more, though Lucija can hardly tell what when every experience is a new one.
The same sense of surprise can be felt in every frame of Djukić’s drama where the filmmaker catches onto something spiritual well away from the many religious statues that line the halls of the convent, relying on sound as much as image to convey Lucija as part of a choir while developing her own individual voice and gracefully moving from folk music of yore to the Sonic Youth tune that inspired the film’s title. Recently selected by Slovenia as its official Oscar entry after a festival run that began in Berlin earlier this year, “Little Trouble Girls” is making its way to the States this week with a theatrical release starting out at the IFC Center in New York and Djukić spoke of her collaboration with her incredible lead actress Ostan, how the film connects to her previous work and how she really felt the hand of God on set.
It was striking to me knowing that you made a previous short (with Émilie Pigeard) “Granny’s Sexual Life” that you’ve now covered the ages when sex is least talked about for women. Did one actually lead you to pursue the other?
It’s a topic that’s in different corners of all my work, especially when I found this book that inspired “Granny’s Sexual Life.” I was just shocked. But at the same time, I started understanding this trauma of generations of women and the relationship towards the body and sexuality in the daytime, so they definitely are connected.
“Little Trouble Girls” is from different places and it’s not an autobiographical film, but definitely inspired by the events from my own childhood, especially the feelings of shame and guilt around my own body. I think it’s important for even today’s generation, but everybody feels at one point, living in a patriarchal society, these rules that were created by Catholic Christianity about the body and about the sexuality of women and men and the feelings of guilt and shame that are mechanisms to oppress us.
This [specific idea] started when I went to see a concert of a Catholic choir from girls, they were around 16 years old and singing this very strong, beautiful Slovenian folk song. They were just on the verge of becoming women and this strong feminine energy came out. That touched me very deeply because the voices of women were so repressed throughout history, and in the first row, there were these three priests also really enjoying the performance and [I was taken by] this contrast – the men from a patriarchal environment [embracing] celibacy and these girls that are blossoming. In that moment, I knew there’s something I need to go research and to take this experience and give it to the audience.
From what I understand, Jara might’ve had some influence on the character as well once she was cast. What was it like to find her for the lead?
I really like to work and we start with a lot of improvisational rehearsal to understand and to research these characters. But Jara, at the time was 16 and she didn’t have any [acting] experience, so if I wanted to push her in one direction, it didn’t really work. She was already very close to the idea of this character, but [from the rehearsals] I used her character as well a little bit to shape this character and we did a lot of improvisational rehearsal with the girls to also influence their chemistry. We found more realistic human behavior there, and I love to work like that because what I can imagine is sometimes very different than what this reality brings and each of [the actors] have something special they can add to the work.
One of the things that I was so amazed by was the blocking throughout and I imagine how precise it had to be. But you get all that chemistry between the girls or in group scenes. Was it difficult to maintain the energy of those scenes even with all the camerawork required?
Actually when I first saw this choir, I went to observe them [in other performances after]. I was with them on some rehearsals and I realized that this rehearsal process is so interesting because it’s not just [a process of] playback, then final music. It’s a little bit music, a little bit talking and some interactions between [reflecting different relationships] so this is very complex. It was hard to shoot because for sound and camera to work together, it was extra hard. The blocking was done extra carefully and very precise from the beginning. And after we did some [takes] we opened up a little bit and say, “Okay, let’s see what can happen inside this frame. But I wanted to be very, very close to the character and have this sensual experience of the body, to feel what she’s feeling. But we made it good because that [rehearsal] process is so more interesting than when you see a final concert. That’s amazing also, but to see inside what is happening between these people when they rehearse is very special.
You have a tight frame and use the sound so evocatively to fill out the outside – did knowing what you could pull off aurally influence the image?
Yeah, sound was a big part in the script phase. I always put a lot of emphasis on sound and I feel that the vibration is even more important sometimes than the image. It can give you space and if you go very close, you know what the space feels like. From my previous work, sometimes I tried to go very close and it was more interesting to me than to be too far. When you come so close, everything starts going out of the frame and that was a kind of metaphor that you cannot really frame a young girl’s ideas, so the framing also corresponded to the story.
This convent seems like such a remarkable place that you had access to. What was it like to build around?
When I first saw this location, I was also mesmerized completely because it’s a small city, Cividale, that was close to Slovenian border in Italy. It’s very old and has this amazing monastery and this river and the Devil’s Bridge and the cave. It’s all there. The first [draft of the] script was a bit different because when I found this location, I completely changed it because it was so inspiring to me. One interesting thing was that when we came there the first time to this monastery, there were [construction] workers there because renovation was going on. [At first] I was wondering how will we shoot here because they are renovating it and they said they will renovate it for three more years. But then I figured out that’s amazing – to use the sound of the renovation to [disrupt] this process of rehearsals and to use the sound in a very strong way. That was actually an inspiration coming from the location.
Plus, you’ve got the construction workers as temptation for these girls going through puberty. In general, was there something unexpected that happened that changed your ideas of this?
There were a few things like that because I really allow myself to work very intuitively. For example, with these flowers [that become a recurring motif], that was not in the script, but I knew I needed to shoot a lot of flowers. At the time [of production], I didn’t understand very well why. But then in the editing, I figured it out because I worked as an editor a lot before and knew [we could incorporate this footage].
Also there’s this touch of God, [which] was something that came out of improvisation. The dialogue was really strong and when we ordered the statue of Virgin Mary from Rome, we ordered a statue without a hand. But they sent us a statue with the hand saying that they cannot make Virgin Mary without a hand. It’s not possible. But they put a hand on a magnet, so you could just take the hand off and put it back on. It was amazing and I loved that, but [I thought] we have to shoot this. How should she take the hand? We didn’t yet know how it would work out and then [out of improvisation] came this touch of God idea. This gave me an understanding that the creative process is sometimes bigger than ourselves – than just me doing it or even a group of people – but something else also happens when you create a space and something divine comes in. That’s the most magical thing of filmmaking.
“Little Trouble Girls” opens on December 5th in New York at the IFC Center, December 12th at the Monica Film Center in Los Angeles and Cinestudio in Hartford, December 19th at the Gateway Film Center in Columbus and CinemaSavannah in Savannah.