A pink prison still remains a prison.
Photo: Grandfilm
Of course, it already looks a bit silly, at least for uninitiated, when martial artists rave about “relaxation”, “meditation” or even “philosophy” in connection with their violent body exercises. After all, there is no question of talking about mixed martial arts. This is an astonishingly popular way of “martial arts” with great show value, which differs from other combat techniques by the extremely high degree of brutality. Trips and blows are not set even if the opponent is already on the ground.
Kurdwin Ayub’s new film »Moon« begins with the final of such a mixed martial arts fight. So we only see the violent end, the sweaty body, blood and exhaustion. It was a defeat for Sarah, the protagonist of this abysmal film. We will soon see her again, as a sports trainer in conflict with her student, shortly afterwards in the no less conflicting private environment.
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She suddenly receives the offer to teach three teenagers from rich family in Mixed Martial Arts in Jordan. That sounds like an adventure vacation and after a temporary way out of the indefinite working life. But the violence that we encountered in the first scene in the first scene runs through the whole film in different types.
Sarah is played by Florentina Holzinger, currently celebrated as a shooting star of the theater business. Holzinger works as a director and choreographer. With her work she got an enthusiastic audience. Their ingredients are a purely female cast, bare bodies, motorized vehicles and a feminist message. Holzinger also appears as a performer. But as in “moon” she was certainly not yet visible.
Holzinger proves to be an enormous differentiated actress who seems strange to any art. With its precise game, she becomes a load -bearing force for a film that understands too much action and only well -intentioned explanatory intentions and instead relies on big pictures and the big questions.
Sarah is housed in “Moon” in a luxurious hotel in Jordan. Everything seems to be thought. A driver picks them up in the morning and silently brings them to a distant, palace -like estate. Abdul (Omar Almajali) receives her, he is the older brother of the three young women Nour (Andria Tayeh), Fatima (Celina Sarhan) and Shaima (Nagham Abu Baker). Like the house workers, he soon turns out to be a guardian over his sisters. The place where nothing seems to be lacking does not have internet. The young women are shielded from the outside world. Sarah must contractually commit himself to refraining from mobile phone recordings.
They do the combat training rather half -heartedly. Sarah feels visibly out of place. What is she doing here as an apparently unwanted trainer? It is also sealed off abroad. She spends the evenings at the hotel bar. The lack of freedom also takes it.
Gradually it shows how heavily the chains of the three sisters weigh.
Gradually it shows how difficult the chains of the three sisters weigh how far the oppression that they are exposed to. Sarah realizes that – as a professional fighter – she has become a projection surface for the escape fantasies of others. The portrait of two opposing worlds in snapshots is a psychological thriller.
As in the combat scene that opens the film, the question arises in what way strength strengthens. Is strong who wins? Or the one who, already lying on the ground, is capable of punching on a blow? Ayub shows us the lack of freedom of Sarah as well as that of the Jordan women. Some like the others have to suffer a defeat. Without didactics and simplifying equations, parallels are shown. You shouldn’t count on a happy ending.
Female emancipation, identity crises and cultural struggles are the big topics that Ayub is working on. “Moon” has been published as the second part of a trilogy that tries to do it. With “White Widow” she recently gave her theater debut on the Berlin Volksbühne on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. The staging was a likeable undertaking between feminist declaration of war and (post) criticism of colonialism. What you are already succeeding in the film – exciting and complex telling, a skilful dramaturgy of the pictures – she will still have to acquire for the theater. However, you can look forward to the last part of the trilogy as well as on further attempts on stage.
“Moon”: Austria 2024. Director/book: Kurdwin Ayub. With Florentina Holzinger, Andria Tayeh, Celina Antwan and Nagham Abu Baker. 92 min. Start: 27.3.