Director: Femke Baeten
Writer: Femke Baeten
Cast: Lotte Jonker, Claire Schuyffel, Jadore Felter
Running time: 19mins
With a blank page before me, I am not really sure how to start this review. Instinctively, it feels like I should begin with a disclaimer: the story touches upon a number of themes and events which I have never had to directly experience, so I am out of my depth when speaking about them.
But on the other hand, the importance of storytelling, is that it should be able to make audiences empathise with subjects and people from beyond their own bubble of experiences. From that perspective, I can at least state that Pepita very much succeeds.
Femke Baeten’s script begins with Elin (Lotte Jonker) and Maiya (Claire Schuyffel) wiling away the afternoon, at home. Maiya, the mother, is painting her toenails, while her daughter Elin eats a sandwich watching TV, when suddenly she exclaims she has lost track of the time.
“Shit!”
The pair hurriedly get ready, and Maiya drives Elin to a miscellaneous after school club of some kind. Taking place in a gymnasium, the kids charge about the space, swinging from ropes, climbing up walls, leaping from elevated platforms. Frankly the activities make little to no sense to the adult eye, and seems like an absolute health and safety nightmare for the school hosting it – but escaping from those rigidly structured sensibilities that have been drilled into me since leaving my own school days, I think it is a pretty good approximation of the reckless abandon of childhood play.
However, just as we begin to lose ourselves in the endless whirlwind of young energy, gasps of laughter float across the gymnasium. A group of other girls stand, pointing and giggling at Elin, whose tracksuit bottoms are now stained with blood.
This is, as I said, where I cannot comment directly as to how effective the film is at conveying what is likely a deeply distressing moment in many women’s lives. Someone who has lived through that moment, of unexpectedly starting their first period in public, may feel differently to me about what follows.
The thing is, while countless other movies and television shows have told me the moment of social embarrassment is utterly crushing in this moment, it does not seem to be the central driving force behind Elin’s ensuing dismay. She isn’t happy with the way she is being talked about, with some ‘friends’ sniggering at how “disgusting” they found the incident – but when Sam (Jadore Felter), a true friend, steps in to defend her, Elin orders her to leave it.
The pair part ways outside the sports hall, with Elin not even issuing a goodbye. One of the things that Baeten’s 19 minutes of film might have found more space for is to explore this relationship – and at least allow it a little room for conversational closure later on. That does not manifest – but it’s also not of central importance to the impact of the rest of the story. I just wish it was treated as a little less obviously superfluous.
In the car, Elin reluctantly shows her mother what has happened. She is greeted with a response which is very different in tone, “What an incredibly exciting time and magical moment!”, but seems just as non-plussed by it. Here, as far as I can work out, is where the crux of her distress, and the discussion of the film, actually lies.
Elin has been rudely wrenched from the fun, explorative years of childhood in a single moment. Suddenly, the world has a bunch of asinine assumptions and expectations for this 12-year-old to meet as a ‘woman’. Whether it is framed as a positive, or a moment dripping in shame, Elin feels as though she is no longer being judged as herself, or her desires, but a set of arbitrary requirements. To be an elegant, and beautiful figure, removed from activity and filth. Destined to be gawped at and judged, a personality now defined by the eyes of others.
Perhaps the earlier scene – where her mother forgets the after school activities session, because she is upkeeping those same beauty standards – contributes to this, but Maiya doesn’t help matters when she mentions a “pretty dress” she has bought her daughter. It’s for Elin to show off her legs, “where your beauty lies”, but only for careful wearing, explicitly not to get dirty in.
That isn’t to say Maiya is an overbearing maternal figure, bent on policing what her daughter does, and how she exhibits ‘femininity’. She is doing her best – she just is a fallible parent, who sometimes puts their foot in it. It is to Baeten’s credit that her role has been written this way – as the well-meaning but occasionally clumsy parent is an archetype more often reserved for fathers, but is effective, and touching in this story. When Maiya comes to understand what her daughter is really worried about – that the fun is over, and now it is time to start acting ‘like a lady’ – she adapts and accommodates.
The moment of reaching adulthood as a woman does not need to mean rewriting Elin along the lines of patriarchal expectation. The dress will be dirtied. Elin will be as fierce and curious as she has ever been. And the mother and daughter will support each other to thrive for years to come.
I haven’t lived through that exact experience. But the quality of the storytelling means I can relate to it through my own experiences; of reaching the threshold of adulthood, and wondering if that necessitates the death of my inner-child. And of having the good fortune to have parents who understood those fears, and did not push me onto a path that did not fit me for the sake of social conventions.
In that case, I would argue that Pepita does an excellent job of making what could be an awkward topic for some accessible, and relatable. In doing so, it might even make some of its viewers more understanding and empathetic to young people – and particularly girls – going through the upheaval that is early adolescence. That should be highly commended.
The central performances of Jonker and Schuyffel should also be noted before I sign off. I would perhaps have enjoyed more verbal communication between the two, to give them both the opportunity to showcase more of their acting prowess. But to be able to convey emotion so well without words is just as impressive – and Baeten did well to realise that a less-is-more script would suit them well.