 Creatura which is an intimate film that looks at female sexuality){kind=link}
Elena Martín Gimeno starred (as Mila age 35), directed, and co-wrote (with Clara Roquet) Creatura which is an intimate film that looks at female sexuality and how early shame in the sexual awakening has long-term effects – reflected in the film as outward bodily rashes. The film looks at Mila at three points in her life, 5 (played by Mila Borràs), 15 (played by Clàudia Dalmau), and 35.
The awakening begins very innocently when Mila is 5 watching people on the beach and a woman getting her bum rubbed. Anyone that’s spent time around children knows they are sponges when they’re young, if they see it or they hear it, they want to mimic it in some way. And she does, requesting a bum rub from her father during bedtime, an innocent request he doesn’t hesitate to comply. Later while sleeping on her stomach, she unwittingly masturbates and wakes pleased by the feeling it created. She’s then seen knowingly or unknowingly trying to recreate that friction – but instead of a conversation, she’s shoved aside by her father, and the beginning of shame is established – and its connection to a rash. As she reveals a bodily rash to her mother. While the later rashes in her life may be triggered by a mind/body reaction, the first rash is most likely triggered by simple childhood gameplay, as we see Mila and her childhood friends all put a bunch of flowers in their swimsuit bottoms, which is where the rash formed.
While both the 15 and 35-year-old Milas seek to have sexual relationships there was such a beautiful heartbreak in 15-year-old Mila, who wanted intimacy and sex, but had a block that kept her from finishing, and still got labeled a slut. Meanwhile, 35-year-old Mila is physically at war with herself and her inability to give herself fully sexually to her partner.
This film looks at the power of repression, its festering quality, how it can hang over you, and how sometimes they grow because of bad information. Masturbation is a conversation that most people aren’t comfortable speaking about, I struggle to think of films and movies where it’s not brought up to be the butt of a joke. Female sexuality has managed to become less taboo in this century. But a film where the protagonist’s core wound centers on her childhood masturbation, is something new. The only time I can think of that I’ve seen a storyline even touch young female masturbation was in a C-plot of an episode of House M.D. In that episode from one of the early seasons, House is working in the Clinic and a mother brings in her daughter worried something is wrong with her, only for House to determine that the girl is masturbating in her car seat – but again this storyline was played for the aforementioned comedy. Mila’s masturbation wasn’t a joke in this film but a deft character study on trauma, and the long road to healing.
Creatura had its World Premiere in the Directors’ Fortnight section at Cannes.
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