Disfluency began as a short film with the same tile in 2018. Anna Baumgarten, who wrote the short, took on the mantle of the writer and director for the feature, reuniting with her lead Libe Barer as Jane. Disfluency screened at the Austin Film Festival, where it won the Narrative Feature award.
Right from the initial dream sequence, the title of the film was illuminated, and that Jane is dealing (aka not dealing) with something. Something that caused her to fail her course at university. This is made very clear by the tension between her and her parents when she wakes up in their backseat at the drive-thru. I love the repeated motif by her parents that food will solve all problems.
Audiences are let in right away that Jane’s trauma stems from an assault, but she hasn’t told anyone else. However, her return to town is such an anomaly her sister Lacey (played by Ariela Barer, Libe’s real-life sister) rearranges her life to stay around and be there for her. It was a confusing aspect for me as they made it seem like she never came home once she left for university and, I guess that happens sometimes, but besides being ultra-focused on her career pursuit, she didn’t seem to dislike her family. So I found it weird that she never came home or knew of any of the gossip (aka Amber and her baby).
Language was a very important thing in this film, as the title suggests, but what I love is that it wasn’t just the spoken language. ASL was not just respected, it was treated as the superior form of communicating because conversing in it is 100%, no bullshit. You can’t be in another room on your phone, giving the other person your partial attention. With ASL, you have to be fully engaged. They spoke about how all languages should be like that. So, it was fitting that the first time Jane speaks of her trauma, she insists on using ASL.
Everything about the 4th of July sequence was perfect in how you could see the panic attack coming because of lighting, the space, and how it would trigger sense memory of the party and the source of her trauma. But you could also see her walking herself into the moment because she has a crush on this guy (the previous flirting over how to roll a joint that gave me flashbacks to my creative writing class), and she’s been repressing everything about the night, so much so that she’s had what appear to be multiple instances of losing time. The claustrophobia-inducing tightness of the framing between the doc and the water, and the reflecting fireworks lighting the scene were all you needed to build the tension in the scene.
I’ve enjoyed Ariela Barer’s work as an actor since I saw her in both One Day at A Time and Marvel’s Runaways in the same year. While she gave a great performance, and I enjoyed seeing her in a grounded role, it was her sister Libe that was tasked with carrying the brunt of the film. And she did. Once the film began, I knew I was in for a “rape monologue,” and I was not looking forward to it. They’re important, but it’s one of those things that you hate that they continue to be necessary. I didn’t want to hear another fictional story that reflects a truth all too real. But Libe delivered an amazing performance, and the internal conflict the character feels about her assault has not been shared as often but needs to be heard because victims find many reasons to rationalize why they aren’t a victim. But trauma is trauma.
Anna Baumgarten wrote the initial short to work through her own trauma. Use of language was so important to her because when you are dealing with this kind of thing, you struggle with trusting others and yourself. A line she used stuck out to me; language is not perfect, because we’re not perfect.
Disfluency: Natural interruptions in the smooth flow of speech