‘Have You Seen This Woman?’: Venice Review

Dirs/scrs: Dusan Zoric, Matija Gluscevic. Serbia/Croatia. 2022. 79 mins.

A middle-aged woman seeks her best life in the debut feature from Dusan Zoric and Matija Gluscevic, an unsettling existential psychodrama. A committed central performance from Ksenija Marinkovic carries Have You Seen This Woman? across a journey through absurdity and poignancy, but the narrative offers no easy answers, and the shifts in tone create a striking but challenging film most likely to find a welcome at festivals.

An intriguing, often disconcerting film

Together and apart, Zoric and Gluscevic have made a succession of shorts and documentary projects. (Zoric’s 2018 short Foreign Body screened at Venice, while Gluscevic’s short Loop premiered at Locarno in 2017.) There is a documentary feel to the prologue of their first joint feature. A camera zooms in on an apartment block where a television journalist reports from an open window. In stern tones, he notes that this was the home of Draginja (Marinkovic), who disappeared more than five years ago. There was no trace of violence in the apartment, and no explanation for what might have happened.

We then see Draginja as she demonstrates the wonders of the Priby vacuum cleaner to potential clients who seem indifferent to her presence, even when she is in the same room. She has become an invisible woman. Television reports speak of a heatwave, police seizure of psychoactive drugs, and the search for a woman who has simply vanished. When Draginja discovers a dead body in one house, it prompts her to break the pattern of a life that holds her spellbound with its dull routines, suffocating expectations and quiet despair. She winds up at a rave, and one of the film’s most endearing sequences features a blissed-out Draginja swaying on the dance floor and enjoying the awesome feel of her hands on her body.

The next Draginja we see is a glamorous redhead with a fondness for big earrings. She works as a nurse and takes extreme measures to build a sense of the happy family situation that has thus far eluded her. This includes hiring bit-part actor Zoran (Boris Isakovic) to pretend to be her husband for the benefit of neighbours and relatives who now live in Australia. “Finally, I got settled,” she triumphantly announces in one Zoom call. The strain of absurdist comedy blossoms again in a musical sequence, this time at a birthday barbecue to which all the neighbours have been invited.

The final Draginja is a more distressing figure. We first see her naked and agitated as she walks the streets. She is eventually reunited with parents who treat her like an errant child. She cannot remember her name but is later recognised as an actress who once provided the voice of Peppa Pig.

There are echoes of Sebastian Lelio’s Gloria (2013) in the story of a lonely, older woman trying to embrace life on her terms. There are moments reminiscent of Carol Morley’s Dream Of A Life (2011) in the way the film addresses life’s fragility and how one individual can sometimes leave so few traces of her existence. The stories in Have You Seen This Woman? speak of of isolation, discontent and the search for meaningful connections. Nothing is explicitly stated, but the directors ultimately create a portrait of an unseen woman.

There are recurring elements of cats, dogs, the comfort of pink bunnies (large and small) and the lure of chocolate cake. The directorial duo initially seem to be working in the style of the Romanian New Wave with a minimalist approach matched by a dry black humour. That expands to a wider range of styles, veering towards Kafkaesque nightmare by the time Draginja is alone and at risk on the threatening streets. Is this a way of conveying her fracturing mental health? The vulnerability of Marinkovic’s sensitive, big-hearted performance ensures that an intriguing, often disconcerting film never loses touch with its human core.