{"id":10793,"date":"2017-03-21T09:55:44","date_gmt":"2017-03-21T13:55:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/?p=10793"},"modified":"2017-03-21T09:55:44","modified_gmt":"2017-03-21T13:55:44","slug":"girlhood-sublimity-watching-fits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2017\/03\/girlhood-sublimity-watching-fits.html","title":{"rendered":"From Girlhood to Sublimity: Watching “The Fits” Again"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

It is the last dream of children: to be forever untouched.<\/p>\n

\u2013Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The AFI Silver theater in Silver Spring is doing this terrific series where they feature movies from the past year that you might have missed. I believe The Witch<\/em> is later this week and yes, go see The Vvitch<\/em>, it\u2019s vvonderful. (It\u2019s vvreally sad!<\/a>) But what I saw in this series was The Fits<\/em>, Anna Rose Holmer\u2019s extraordinary feature debut. It was the best movie I saw last year and now that I\u2019ve watched it twice I think it might be in my all-time top five movies, definitely top ten.<\/p>\n

You can read my original review here<\/a>. The Fits<\/em> is a story of girlhood; its world is seen through the eyes of a \u201clittle tomboy,\u201d an eleven-year-old girl training to be a boxer. She becomes utterly enraptured by the older girls in a fierce dance troupe. The movie is intensely both homosocial and heterosexual, both totally queer-friendly and recognizable to a queer girl audience and quite blunt in its association of femininity with adulthood, surrender, vulnerability, and sublimity. The Fits<\/em> uses careful social observation (Holmer, who is white and hadn\u2019t initially intended this to be a story about black girls, worked with her actors to create their world) to tell a story as weird and richly symbolic as a fairy tale.<\/p>\n

Some of my notes from the rewatch:<\/p>\n

# We open with the ecstasy of physical exertion: the slight ringing in the ears as Toni counts out her sit-ups.<\/p>\n

# I love any movie that shows us this much physical work. Holmer has a Dardennes-like eye for the grueling work of the muscles, rolling water cooler bottles and carrying heavy loads.<\/p>\n

# Our first sight of the dance troupe shows them silhouetted against sunlight: pure mystery, the blank for a young girl\u2019s yearning arrows. And the first time Toni watches the dancers it\u2019s just electric. The dance is ferocious, aggressive, all the beauty and conflict of women\u2019s culture.<\/p>\n

# Even when we see Toni plodding along as the girls race by her, she never seems sorry for herself. Royalty Hightower is just such a gem here as Toni. All the actors\u2019 faces and bodies are so expressive\u2013Toni hanging around all askew, twisting her eloquent child\u2019s body. When they\u2019re saying their lines the actors sometimes get a bit actressy, but as with Less Than Zero<\/a>,<\/em> that stagey quality totally worked for me here. It\u2019s not natural, but it\u2019s a compelling representation of people at an age where they\u2019re still learning how to play the roles they\u2019re given.<\/p>\n

# Children spend so much time alone: playing, imagining. In their own minds. This movie really captures that. Childhood, here, is solitary; adulthood is social.<\/p>\n

# Lol these boxing dudes doing fashion design.<\/p>\n

# There are definite horror echoes here, especially in the rhythm of the film\u2019s scenes: the languor and suspense, the attention given to stillness<\/em>, punctuated by violent action.<\/p>\n

# This ear-piercing scene! Everything about the ear-piercing is so resonant. I was twelve again, playing with my own earlobes, feeling them heat and swell and learn to accommodate the intrusion.<\/p>\n

# Black girls: \u201cWe\u2019re not going to be interrogated on the television.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey won\u2019t believe us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet them think what they want.\u201d<\/p>\n

# The ecstasy of competition: \u201cIt\u2019s like time stops.\u201d<\/p>\n

# The moment when I knew I was in love with this movie was about halfway in, when I remembered what the last scene is and a thrill went through me as I remembered I\u2019d get to see that again.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is the last dream of children: to be forever untouched. \u2013Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name The AFI Silver theater in Silver Spring is doing this terrific series where they feature movies from the past year that you might have missed. I believe The Witch is later this week and yes, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[1314,88,32,54,72,18,1315,64,113],"class_list":["post-10793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","tag-anna-rose-holmer","tag-as-antony-said-to-cleopatra","tag-gayer-than-a-picnic-basket","tag-how-to-stop-time","tag-in-the-flesh","tag-race","tag-royalty-hightower","tag-sublimity-now","tag-woman-is-the-irony-of-the-community"],"yoast_head":"\nFrom Girlhood to Sublimity: Watching "The Fits" Again<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It is the last dream of children: to be forever untouched. --Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name The AFI Silver theater in Silver Spring is doing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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