Movie Review: SLOVENKA

Slovenka, known as Slovenian Girl in English, takes its name from the alias Sasha (Nina Ivanisin) uses when publishing sex ads in the local newspaper. She is a struggling college student, the apple of her father's eye by day and a prostitute by night. After buying and mortgaging a new flat, Sasha finds herself low on money and the target of two pimps.

Director Damjan Kozole's film is a slice of story lacking a true character arc for Sasha and that may be Slovenka's biggest downfall, at least for western audiences trained to look for a definite "goal" at the cinema. That's not to say the film is a failure; much the opposite, actually. By not adhering to convention, Kozole makes the drama stand out from the crowd, giving it a European feel. Sasha doesn't exactly learn anything through the film. Oh, she tries to change, but she falls into old habits when the going gets rough.

As an audience, we can't help but want Sasha to turn over another leaf, get a respectable job and stop the circle of lies she engages in. Not because she's a compelling character or the story does such a good job of putting us in her shoes, but because we know living by selling your body will eventually run out. Kozole tries to showcase the issues in her life (Sasha using the same tumor lie over and over is a piece of very dark humor), though there is never any build up to conversations with the bank or a professor. They're all very matter of fact, as if the camera was set down at Point X to follow her and then turned off at Point Y.

Told without flash or substance, Slovenka is a tour de force for its lead actress. Ivanisin's sad, expressive eyes convey more about the character than any dialogue could. As Sasha goes through all her encounters, she lacks genuine emotion. The only time anything approaching feeling enters into the picture is when she turns on the waterworks to achieve something she can't get with sex. Whether it's rescheduling an exam or getting another couple of days leniency on her delinquent bank loan, Ivanisin's performance reaffirms the characters traits we see on the screen: lonely, desperate, attention-starved.

(Slovenka doesn't spend a lot of time with the juxtaposition of Sasha's professional and personal lives. They do meet in the third act to an unsatisfactory resolution. The idea may be there can be no real separation of outside life and work no matter what kind of job a person finds themselves in. In effect, what Sasha does away from her father and friends directly impacts what she does while she's not on the clock, as showcased in two separate sequences-one on the street and one with her father.)

This universe isn't terribly fleshed out, with minor story lines being completely discarded for no good reason. Sasha's father Edo (Peter Musevski) tries to resurrect a band with friends seemingly for the sole purpose of creating drama at the end of the film. A conversation with her mother goes nowhere, leaving another potential subplot lacking. There's a friend-Vesna-who drops in and out of the story without rhyme or reason. And then there's a relationship Sasha has with Greg (Uros Furst), a formerly married man who left his wife for her. The pimps completely fall away from the story, as if they were either completely forgotten about or, more accurately, they're actually extraneous to the story itself. All these people could have been used to create a well-rounded, completely world for Sasha and her double life. But they're not. By dropping the audience into the story without much back story or development, the "day in the life" convention is reinforced.

And that is all by design, I think. By utilizing this kind of structure, Kozole is able to remove much of the emotion from the story, giving us an impartial look at life for a prostitute. Maybe impartial is the wrong word since the film never takes the time to show the advantages to this profession. (A better way of putting it may be: The negative side to the business? The personal cost of selling your body? The emotional cost of being a prostitute?) Then again, Slovenka isn't a documentary; it's a drama and these kinds of stories don't thrive on only good things happening to the characters.

Slovenka is playing at the Toronto International Film Festival September 12, 16 and 18. Check the official site for ticket information.