05/07/2024 - A young woman must find her place and her identity in this fairy tale-like story by Ivana Gloria

Feeling, and being, different is a huge part of transitioning from late puberty into early adulthood. However, finding and settling into an identity that suits you is a knack that many people don’t master until they are older. But for Maia (Sarah Short), it’s not just about being comfortable in her own skin. She is different from her peers in more (mythical) ways than one. Ivana Gloria’s Chlorophyll [+see also:
trailer
interview: Ivana Gloria
film profile], which has had its international premiere in the Proxima Competition at the Karlovy Vary IFF, portrays how she comes to accept who she is, while also telling us something about the challenges of life.

When we first meet Maia, she is getting down to business with a guy in a local disco. With her sassy attitude, shiny green hair and eagerness, one would think that this is a woman in complete control. But the intercourse seems to cause her pain and frustration. Why, the audience will learn later. But it seems to be the final straw that pushes her to move to a secluded Italian village over the summer to pick oranges.

There, she meets Teo (Michele Ragno), whose family runs the farm. The seclusive man, who has a hobby of making perfume out of nature’s scents, at first rejects the notion of having somebody else around. But then, he, too, starts noticing something unusual about Maia: her sensitivity to the calls of nature; the little blue flowers growing in her hair. And then there are her dreams – of her amongst the trees, and of her finally finding sexual arousal on the green forest floor.

Slowly, the two of them begin forming a closer bond. Teo does not seek any human company, but loves nature. Maia, on the other hand, may look human, but at the core of her being, she seems to be nature itself. But this is a realisation she keeps fighting. “They’re oranges,” she spits when Teo asks her to be gentler during the harvesting. “They’re alive,” he retorts. And then there is Teo’s family, amongst them his brother Arturo (Domenico De Meo), and an impending party in the village that start invading this space of self-acceptance. Their presence keeps tugging at Maia’s dichotomy of trying to find herself and her pretence of being just like any other woman.

Inspired by her own upbringing in a rural, northern Italian town, and her struggles to find her place there, Gloria elevates the age-old theme of belonging to a poetic, dreamy tale. At times reminiscent of the tone of Ali Abbasi’s Border [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ali Abbasi
film profile], the movie relies on mythical elements while simultaneously capturing the pain of what it feels like as a young woman to transition into a true version of yourself. The orange groves glisten in the warm sunlight, the glasshouse containing Teo’s workshop has a certain elven beauty to it, and the woods that Maia dreams about possess a brooding, but welcoming, otherworldliness.

Overlooking some of the more heavy-handed, even cheesy, exchanges between the characters, it is the visual narrative and the strong performance by Short that draw the viewer into this fairy tale come true.

Chlorophyll is an Italian production staged by Albedo Production and DO Consulting & Production.