Pieces of a Woman

Director: Kornel Mundruczo

Starrings: Vanessa Kirby, Shia LaBeouf, Sarah Snook, Molly Parker, Iliza Shlesinger, Ellen Burstyn, Benny Safdie, Jimmie Fails, Vanessa Smythe, Sean Tucker, Noel Burton, Domenic Di Rosa, Tyrone Benskin, Dusan Dukic

Country: Canada, Hungary

Year 2021

Review author: Ciro De Luca

Translated by Roberto Matteucci

Click Here for Italian Version

Delta, the most famous of director Kornel Mudruczo's films narrated the emancipation of a brother and sister then, their broke up with the realization of the house on stilts. He is in his own nest; he shelters, grasps (the gesture will close another circle), gives light to the shadows.

The two previous films by the Hungarian director have raised doubts. They probably did not confirm the pseudo-contemplative premises of his origin, specifically that disequilibrium in the prose, which actually was not very inspired.

In Pieces of a Woman, the theme of the family returns, as in his lucky beginnings. However, it is not of the same quality as the previous cinematography.

Mudruczo is in his first US film. American cinema has always embraced universal themes. This reference is evident in Pieces of Woman. The story begins in the private, as a visceral autobiographical drama. The following unfolds through warnings, allegories, metaphors of pain, and a sense of disintegration. It could be a game for the spectators, who in the end has an explicit question to resolve. This film resembles a puzzle with a few but large pieces. Their reading is a vision even before they reveal themselves in full image.

Martha and Sean Carson are a couple from Boston, about to have a baby. The parturition will be at home. However, their lives will change forever. The midwife's behaviour was agitated and confusing, and the childbirth turned tragic. The obstetrician is accused of criminal negligence.

Martha's odyssey, lasting one year, begins. She suffers from the loss of her son. In the meantime, she has to manage her difficult relationships, both with her husband and with her despotic mother. While in court, she must confront the despised midwife.

“Is it possible to survive after the person you loved most has been lost? What do you cling to when there are no more supports? My wife and I wanted to share one of our most personal experiences with the public through the story of an unborn child, in the confidence that art can be the right cure for pain ..."

Sean (Shia LaBeouf) is immediately featured. He is a construction worker, engaged in the public works of an imposing bridge in Boston's downtown. He is vigorous, indefatigable, and devoted to waiting for his son. His love for Martha has grown stronger during the expectation.

Boston's bridge marks the narrative and, in becoming, will shorten the distance, but for a brief moment.

Martha is coping with a happy pregnancy. She is plentiful of beauty, that of Vanessa Kirby definitively consecrated to be a new Hollywood rising star. Martha decides to conceive at home birth and prepares it with her trusted midwife.

Kornèl is the filmmaker, while his wife, Kata Wéber, is the writer. They are transfigured through the cinematographic medium and give meaning to the two parts.

At the opening, the director is impetuous. He is determined to shoot the birth through a swirling and vibrant plan-sequence. The plan-sequence is the quintessence of expression and follows the protagonists, who later become three and then four. Between grief, joy, and worry, the waters break. The obstetrician arrives. Disappointment, she is a stranger. She is not Martha's previously chosen specialist. Resignation soon prevails, and then trust shows up. Something is wrong. The newborn seems unable to come out. Thy need a help. This is despair and an anachronistic birth in the era of hyper-technology. The miracle arrives, Martha and Sean are the parents of a purple child for a few minutes. From here, just women's pieces.

Mundruzcó's inspiration is decreasing at the moment. Another story starts. The first thirty minutes of the film are the prelude to a plot with little blood, sweat, and movement. It is not a phlegmatic imposition or even a cinema entrusted to genre compassion. The narrative becomes a female choice, in telling itself, suggesting an unshakable, stoic dignity, exploited in the service of its iconic and metaphorical paraphrase.

Pieces of Woman is like pieces of apple. The apple is the most recurring figure as an iconographic communication tool; the apple of the first woman and her seeds. Martha will want to plant those seeds indoors to try to fruit again. However, Sean refuses them. He is desperate and marginalized, an adulterous man. The purple fruit to give to science, to sow again, to pick, to welcome.

There are moments of intense and passionate tension, which quickly become physical in the life of a couple. They better redefine the labour economy, even if they frequently play a minor role in the gaps between metaphors. The easy meditative nature of the story is not regretted. A parenthesis not to be neglected is the search for justice and necessary truth, equally fascinating.

Then the bridges. According to Martha's mother (Ellen Burstyn), they are to burn. And the bridge under construction is getting closer and closer to its completion. Bridges are in erection, bridges are collapsed. The bridge between Sean and Martha inevitably collapses.

The spouses tried to exorcize the torment through art. It is unclear whether this art has been interpreted correctly as "artificial" or if it has been dissected for simple analysis. Studying the emotional value of a specific reason. Above all, through the eradication of desperation and the creation of greenery all around.

Sensations under the epidermis need to flow, perhaps more charged with blood.