- Unveiling the Sauna Sisterhood
- Healing and Empowerment through Shared Experiences
- Filming Challenges and Cinematic Approach
Historically, female friends have congregated to share life stories and laugh while wearing their clothes.
However, in the documentary Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, the women are uncovered.
Filmed in Estonia for seven years, the film depicts a group of women disrobing for a four-hour session of sweating and soul-baring before jumping into a frigid lake.
As the women reveal their innermost thoughts and recollections, the camera is extraordinarily close; you can see every bead of sweat and fold of skin.
Everyone is completely at ease with one another.
In the heat of the sauna, we observe them rubbing salt into their skin, slapping each other on the back with branches, and pouring water over their scalding bodies.
In the summer, we also see women squatting close together in the woodlands to relieve themselves while a dog runs between them.
During filming, the identities of some women are visible, while others chose to remain anonymous.
Given that the sauna is filled with smoke and vapor, it is remarkable that the camera lens remains so clear.
Anna Hints, whose film won a directing honor at the Sundance Film Festival in January, describes her film as “a safe space where all your emotions can be expressed and heard.”
As a child growing up in eastern Estonia, she grew to appreciate the ritual of the sweltering, smoky log cabin.
Having been added to Unesco’s inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, it is something to cherish.
For Hints, the sauna symbolizes the profound emotional connection between women and the physical and emotional discharge of toxins.
She recalls the moment she became enamored with the age-old custom after observing her grandmother release some agonizing emotions.
“A significant event occurred when I was 11 years old,” she explains.
She and her female family members had congregated to enjoy a sauna together.
“My grandfather had passed away, and his corpse was in the residence. One day before the funeral.
“And there, in the sauna, my grandmother disclosed that my grandfather had betrayed her with another woman.
“She expressed how difficult it was, and she expressed all the associated emotions. It took time.
“Thereafter, we left, and there was peace.”
This is depicted repeatedly in the film, as the seasons change and the women return to their “safe space” repeatedly.
They discuss their relationships with their mothers, have a good time discussing sex, and speak about how they feel about their bodies.
One woman describes the moment she came out as gay to her parents, while another describes what it was like to grow up in a culture that favored males.
When distressing topics are brought up, such as sexual assault and cancer, the women attend attentively and absorb every word.
Similar to the continuously flowing water in a sauna, emotions flow out.
The women repeatedly sing and chant their support: “Take away the pain.”
Afterward, we see them dive into the icy pool excavated into the frozen lake outside.
It appears painful as they walk barefoot across the ice, but they all appear revitalized afterward.
“Everyone has a story inside,” states Hints. “As you perspire, first there is more [on] the surface, and then dirt comes out – the same is true with your emotions.”
She explains that “we all have these tales and deeper layers of experience”
“Something magical occurs when you are there, nude in the darkness, surrounded by this community. And when one shares something, no one begins to instruct.
“When you share, another listens, which is a tremendous strength. This is a component of the recovery process.”
Before the start of her film screening in Sheffield, Hints offers the audience a novel experience.
She stands in the front and sings a traditional greeting, inviting us to join her: “All your fears in cold water, All your shame in cold water, All your pain in cold water.”
This does not inspire a massive singalong, but it does receive a warm round of acclaim and serves as a preview of the film that will follow.
Hints explain that the technical apparatus had to be acclimatized to capture the footage.
She explains, “It is extremely difficult.”
“The average temperature was eighty degrees, and the average session lasts four hours, after which you leave and return.”
Two hours before the start of photography, the lens of the camera was placed on the floor of the sauna to adjust to the heat.
Outside, there was a second lens, as the camera inside the sauna could not be used due to the temperature difference.
During the seven years they spent filming the documentary, two lenses reportedly broke, which is perhaps not surprising.
“As director, I had to hold the space not only emotionally, but also physically, ensuring that everyone is hydrated and that we don’t wait too long to leave,” she explains.
Hints explain how important it was to film the women’s bodies so closely.
She employed a male cinematographer and took measures to prevent the film from sexualizing the women.
“So he’s very sensitive, but at first, when we were discovering the language, there was a male gaze, and he wasn’t aware of it,” she says.
“It became a journey of self-awareness that he is accustomed to viewing female bodies in a particular manner.
Then adjusting that and beginning to see beyond desire or judgment.
Gayle Sequeira wrote in Film Companion that Hints attained her objective, stating, “The gaze is not erotic, but compassionate. These women’s bodies are the maps upon which their lives’ histories have been inscribed.”
Jessica Kiang of Variety added, “The small, smoky, steamy miracle of this film is how it creates something so intangible, so lyrical from the utterly elemental: Fire, wood, water, and lots of naked female flesh.”
Alissa Wilkinson of Vox described the film, which has a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes, as a “gorgeously captured space, carved out away from the world of men.”
Hints conclude with an additional anecdote about a woman who gained a positive body image after viewing the film.
“She informed me in a letter that she had hired a photographer,” she says.
“Throughout her existence, she had been so angry about her body that she despised it.
“And now, sufficient.
“She will simply take some beautiful photographs and accept her appearance as it is.
“That was so nice.”
