In many Orthodox countries in Eastern Europe, there is a tradition that takes place every January 19th to commemorate the Epiphany in which a priest throws a wooden cross into the water. Whichever man is bold enough to dive into the freezing water and find the cross first is celebrated and said to receive good luck. But in 2014, in the small Macedonian town of Štip, a woman caught the cross. Naturally, as often happens when a woman dares to join the traditions and pastimes of men, outrage ensued.
That real-life event is the inspiration for God Exists, Her Name is Petrunya. Directed by Macedonian filmmaker Teona Strugar Mitevska, the film chronicles the fallout of the titular woman’s impulsive decision to dive for the cross and beat all of the men to the prize. What starts as a strong, visually striking ode to one woman’s act of rebellion gradually runs out of steam, as though the film is unsure of what it is trying to say apart from “down with the patriarchy!” An admirable message to be sure, but not quite enough in this case to carry an entire movie.
Looking for Luck
Petrunya (Zorica Nusheva) is a 32-year-old unemployed woman with a university degree in history. Her mother, Vaska (Violeta Sapkovska) wants her to get a job, any job, and to take better care of her appearance; she’s seemingly embarrassed by her daughter’s weight despite, or perhaps because of, Petrunya’s assertion that she’d prefer to be naked all the time. After a disastrous job interview in which the man interviewing Petrunya savages both her lack of work experience and her appearance, asserting that he would neither hire her nor sleep with her while simultaneously feeling up her thigh, Petrunya stalks off and finds herself being jostled along by a crowd of cheering men heading to the local river.
As the priest throws a small wooden cross into the water, the men dive in, hoping to find it and be blessed with good luck. Despite being fully dressed for her interview in a fur coat and floral dress, Petrunya joins them—and to everyone’s surprise, she emerges victorious. While the priest at first seems to side with Petrunya, encouraging the men who are harassing her to curb their boorish behavior, he eventually declares that she must return the cross—after all, it wasn’t hers to catch in the first place.
Petrunya refuses and runs off, sparking an uproar that leads her own mother to call her a monster, the police to hold her in custody despite having no actual crime to charge her with, and the local men to embark on a modern-day witch hunt to catch and punish her. Chronicling it all is an ambitious television journalist, Slavica (Labina Mitevska, the director’s sister as well as the film’s producer), who is inspired by Petrunya’s act of rebellion and hopes that the story will be her own big break. In Petrunya, Slavica sees a kindred spirit; in her story, she sees a way that she too can stick it to the sexist men that surround her.
A Cross to Bear
The first time we see our heroine in God Exists, Her Name is Petrunya, she is standing alone in the middle of an empty swimming pool, wearing that fur coat and floral dress. As the camera slowly tracks in from afar to reveal her stoic face, a heavy metal track rings out on the soundtrack. As the film’s title slams onto the screen in bold font, one already feels riled up to join Petrunya in her fight against the patriarchy. And it’s all too easy to root for her thanks to Nusheva’s bravado performance; an actor who primarily works in comedic theater, this is her first feature film role, and she absolutely smashes it. The film’s early scenes, in which she deals with her mother’s haranguing, urges her best friend to end her relationship with her married boss and suffers through one of the worst job interviews I’ve ever seen, establish her as someone who just doesn’t quite fit into the mold of what is expected of women in her small, old-fashioned town…and also doesn’t really care.
Unfortunately, the rest of the film doesn’t quite live up to that strong beginning, though the visuals do remain striking throughout courtesy of cinematographer Virginie Saint-Martin, who has a knack for bold and creatively framed shots that suit Petrunya and her story. But once Petrunya catches the cross, the script by Mitevska and Elma Tataragic gradually begins to fly off the rails. Many of the characters start to behave in ways that feel inconsistent based on their earlier actions, and while Petrunya remains stubbornly true to herself, one longs to know more about her reasons for doing so.
Yes, Petrunya has dealt with enough bullshit from men to want to beat them at one of their own games, but once she catches the cross in the first place, she has effectively done that—why won’t she give it back and end the chaos? Yes, she could definitely use a healthy dose of luck in her life, but she also doesn’t strike one as a deeply religious or superstitious person—does she really think catching the cross will change her life for the better? It’s hard to say, even as we watch her sit through endless interrogations from both the police and the priest. These scenes don’t feel as though they are building towards anything in particular, but just exist to bulk out the narrative before the film reaches a rather unsatisfying conclusion.
Speaking of the police: the latter part of the film introduces a young cop named Darko (Stefan Vujisic) who is tasked with guarding Petrunya against the mob outside the police station and gradually grows sympathetic to her plight to the point of seemingly falling for her—a subplot that is far too flimsy to be truly invested in. Much more interesting is Petrunya’s complicated relationship with her parents. Her mother is a woman who is clearly much more old-fashioned than her daughter and doesn’t quite understand her; their relationship embodies the violent clash between established tradition and disruptive modernity that is at the heart of the film.
Petrunya’s father, on the other hand, is much more sympathetic and refuses to chastise his daughter for breaking the precedent to catch the cross, arguing that he has worked his whole life in order to give Petrunya a better one. The scene in which crusading journalist Slavica arrives in their home to shoot a segment with them is one of the better ones in the whole movie, rife with just the right amount of conflict to be darkly funny. Indeed, when God Exists, Her Name is Petrunya leans into the satirical bent of the story, it’s definitely at its best; that many of those scenes focus on Slavica, another strong woman like Petrunya who doesn’t fit her Balkan society’s ideal of a soft, compliant wife and mother, is no coincidence. Mitevska’s performance, like Nasheva’s, wrings as much out of the script as possible and, while still not able to tell us as much about this woman as we would like, gives us another great character to cheer for even in the film’s less worthy moments.
Conclusion
While Petrunya herself is certainly a figure worthy of veneration, the film doesn’t quite live up to her character.
What do you think? Are you familiar with Macedonian cinema? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
God Exists, Her Name is Petrunya opens in theaters and virtual cinemas in the U.S. On June 25, 2021.
Watch God Exists, Her Name is Petrunya
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