Your Name Is Justine

Lee Wanyu | wanyuu@gmail.com
the ridge transmedia
A NUSSU Publication

A quarter of a million women are sold into prostitution everyday… This is one of their stories.

Picture provided by The PictureHouse

“I know what I want.”
“And what is it?”
“…I want to be happy.”

Mariola (Anna Cieślak) told her beloved grandmother that she was going on a short holiday with her girlfriends and with Artur (Rafal Mackowiak), when in fact she was only going with him to Germany, the country where he resides, to be introduced to his parents.

The final word of the lie marked the start of the doom.

Picture from http://www.justynafilm.com

The holiday together ended before it even started, when the couple stopped at Berlin for a night in Artur’s friend’s place. The horror of betrayal came when Artur’s friends turned up and handed him the money. Sold to prostitution by the man whom she believed where happiness lies, she was “tested”, deprived of food, kept confined and broken down psychologically.

Where are the dreams? Where is love? Where is justice? Life suddenly revolved around fear – fear of lying to the one who loves you the most, fear of hurting her, fear of desertion, fear of death, fear of being free; because everything comes with a price.

27 year-old Polish newcomer Cieślak played a very convincing Mariola – the happiness when she was with her boyfriend, the shock of his betrayal and the despair of not even being able to escape was perfectly portrayed by the winner of the Best Actress Award in the Mons International Festival of Love Films 2006.

The transition of being Mariola to the character of Justine, an identity forcefully imposed on her brought us back to the opening of the film where pigs in an abattoir waited to be slaughtered, accepting their fate and not being able to do anything about it. She too, accepted her fate, but with the undying hope that she will be freed.

Picture from http://www.justynafilm.com

Another outstanding character was the pimp, Niko, played by Austrian actor Arno Frisch (Funny Games). Frisch brilliantly portrayed Niko as someone who seemed to be stuck in the gray area and a moral conundrum, constantly having conflicting emotions that makes it hard for one to dislike him, yet at the same time fearful, for one cannot quite predict what he might to do next.

Venezuelan director Franco de Pena chose to use sounds and other ways to portray what Mariola went through, which gets into the head even more effectively than visual scenes. He focused on how sex was used as a cruel tool to force a girl to submit fully to people that unduly took her personality away.

From Mariola, one sees what the quarter of a million other women that were sold into prostitution everyday go through, becoming aware of the ways in which traffickers work and the damage inflicted on the victims.

An incredibly stark film, exposing the sheer ugliness of it all, the movie was relentless at driving home its point, and the cast, music, directing was pretty much flawless. However, the only problem I have with the movie would its middle, where the scenes became a tad too repetitive and long-winded.

Overall, it sure is a good film to catch, just be prepared for the post-movie trauma.

Your Name Is Justine, a Polish-language movie, is screening exclusively at The PictureHouse from Thu, 1 Nov 07.