Last night I watched \u201cPacatoasa Teodora\u201d (The Sinner Teodora), an elliptical documentary by director Anca Hirte. It follows a young woman named Teodora as she prepares to make her final vows (? this was not a documentary big on explaining situations or helping the viewer) at a women\u2019s monastery.<\/p>\n
This is a haiku-like, compressed film, with lots of overlapping conversations about nothing in particular and lots of very tight close-ups on Teodora\u2019s lips or eyes. It\u2019s a sidelong glance at monastic life, not an in-depth investigation. It emphasizes the interpenetration of utterly ordinary concerns\u2013did you let the chickens out? do you think I should iron this again?\u2013and otherworldly beauty.<\/p>\n
This is not a movie about particular people. We get virtually no insight into Teodora\u2019s life, emotions, or spirituality. What draws her to the monastery, and what does she fear? That isn\u2019t what the movie is about. The only \u201ccharacter\u201d is monastic life itself. An older nun reminisces, \u201cI have loved so much\u201d\u2013like the old monk\u2019s speech about love in \u201cOf Gods and Men\u201d\u2013and nuns speak of the peace and joy they have found in the monastery, which they couldn\u2019t find in the outside world.<\/p>\n
The film presents us with the contrasts of monastic life without attempting to reconcile or explain them: Teodora identifies herself by her new name as \u201cTeodora the Sinner\u201d even as she\u2019s heaped with flowers, kissed and bedecked as a bride of Christ, and the movie is not actually about how the beauty and mercy affect her understanding of her own sin. (Or what her sins might have been. We actually see her confession. It\u2019s a very general confession, like a communal penance service for only one person, but I still felt like I was intruding on something\u2013like it was wrong for the camera to be there. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s an overly-Catholic response to a scene which may have different resonances for Orthodox viewers.) There are symbolic hints about sin and redemption. When another nun is combing Teodora\u2019s gorgeous hair out in preparation for it to be shorn, Teodora says in sad frustration, \u201cIt\u2019s so tangled.\u201d The nun replies, \u201cIt\u2019s just been washed.\u201d<\/p>\n