The recently concluded 77th Locarno International Film Festival awarded the prestigious Pardo d’Oro to Lithuanian film director Saule Bliuvaite for her debut film, ‘Toxic.’ As an accredited member of the press, I had the opportunity to watch the film, which follows the lives of two Lithuanian teenage girls who aspire to achieve the so-called ‘perfect body’ required for admission to a mysterious modelling school that offers them a chance at a better life in a more developed part of the world amidst a collapsing industrial town in post-Soviet Lithuania. Amidst the many layers of narrative, the primary premise of the film, as I see it, is to capture the paradigm shift in human life that occurs when the industrial society collapses and transitions into a service economy in post-Soviet Lithuania.
This transformation marks a shift in economic power from masculinity to femininity, as the service and entertainment economy increasingly absorbs women into the system by creating opportunities that can only be fulfilled through femininity. It also highlights the challenges women face in transforming their bodies into the so-called “perfect body” suggested by the market economy. Setting the scene The film is primarily set in a bleak, industrial, lower-middle-class urban environment, possibly during summer vacation, as none of the teenagers in the film are attending school or studying.
Their ultimate mission throughout the film is to transform their bodies to meet the standar.