★★★★☆
Marlon Brando’s bald head, popping in and out of the shadows at the climax of Apocalypse Now, is oddly invoked by the visual style of this mesmerising Estonian documentary. The subjects couldn’t be more different, however, as the debut feature from Anna Hints explores her country’s traditional practice of smoke saunas and the lives and stories of several close-knit woman practitioners.
The trick in this smartly edited, engrossing work is that the women are not clearly delineated, instead filmed within the darkened sauna as body parts that, like Brando’s skull, drift in and out of shadows. It’s their voices that matter most and what they express, in rolling monologues of revelation and reflection, ranges from comedic anecdotes to poignant childhood recollections to one
