Lotus is an experimental film and a love letter to cinema, particularly arthouse/experimental cinema. The film, from writer/director Signe Birkova, opens with a visit to a woman, a medium, who can divine the future as Madame von Trott (played by Severija Janušauskaitė), a trip she is told she knows she must take, and yet she seems weary. Then the medium goes into a trance, eats some of what I believe is a cow’s heart on the table before them, and transforms into a nun before the scene switches over to Madame von Trott embarking on her journey as the opening credits roll, accompanied by a song that has a slow eerie folk quality to it, which pairs interestingly with her halting gait, which we only realize later is because she has a prosthetic leg. When the prosthetic leg was first shown, I questioned how it would be handled, especially since they had introduced other characters as being out to kill her. However, while the leg may have given her a limp and a cool cane, it was not used to limit the character or her actions.
When I was younger, I used to think that experimental films lacked narrative, but I learned to appreciate them and how the narrative isn’t immediately clear, but something you have to peel back. Interestingly enough, as far as I can tell the narrative of Lotus is about “narrative” and its relationship to filmmaking. It’s about those who control the narrative, the stories they tell, and reclaiming narrative, as presented through the very medium of the form the film is presented in.
Film, its roots, and its evolution are very much present in this film that utilizes many conventions of early cinema as well as modern cinema. It uses the film-within-a-film technique and has the audience witness Madame von Trott watching a film (a silent film, one that appears to be made for the film), and going through all the emotions, as she transforms before our eyes due to the power of cinema. Shortly afterward she will transform her image taking on a more masculine visage. Metamorphosis is a big part of a character’s journey to show the shedding of old skin to new. Cutting your hair, in general, is tied with the idea of leaving the old life behind, but because there is a body of film work tying female characters with makeover transformations, having the character need to shed so much of her previous image into something of a more masculine visage on route to reclaiming her narrative control carries a subtext of eraser that is unintentional.
Another classic film instrument used is the cartoonish villain. We are introduced to the lawyer as Madame von Trott attends the village church, and we first see him as he plays cat’s cradle with a red string as von Trott has a disquieting reaction to the singing of the villagers. When she flees the space, he is the person who comes to her rescue, only to tell her what she believes to be true (that she owns property there) is not true, she takes her leave of him, but she eventually finds herself seeking his aide again but after she lays out her problems instead of offering a solution he pulls out the red string again, which he’s wearing around his neck and strums it through his mouth as he launches into a song that also feels like a spell because it is so guttural (and also possibly a mockery of another culture as it is presented as song of another people and the performance involves putting on fake ceremonial garb).
Lotus had its World Premiere at the 2034 PÖFF – Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.
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