PIECES OF A WOMAN
PIECES OF A WOMAN I Kornél Mundruczó’s intimate birth drama delivers…
Get the early word on what will be next year’s most talked-about opening shot.
All movies are personal to directors, but Kornél Mundruczó’s (White God) English-language debut – the story of a woman losing a baby in childbirth and navigating the grief that follows – is profoundly personal to him. Written by his wife, Kata Wéber, after what Mundruczó describes as “an unborn baby experience”, Pieces Of A Woman began life as a play at Poland’s TR Warszawa theatre in 2018, before being adapted for the screen... a journey that was part of the healing process for the couple.
“It was not planned,” the Hungarian director tells Teasers from his home in Berlin. “What we were recognising was that we don’t talk about it. I saw some dialogue inside my wife’s notebook about this, and it was dialogue fragments between a mother and a daughter. I was like, ‘Oh my goodness. It’s a new perspective. Now I understand the silence, and I understand so many things.’ I was really encouraging her to start writing. We break our silence. But we might break the silence for many – it’s a very provoking topic.”
Challenging taboos about society’s attitude to infant death (“You do the grief as we are expecting – to cry and forget”), individual approaches to sorrow, generational differences and the pressure a tragedy puts on relationships,
Pieces Of A Woman stars Vanessa Kirby and Shia LaBeouf as a couple the audience meets just as she goes into labour. And in a virtuoso 25-minute opening shot, we follow them throughout the wonderful/terrifying childbirth process, immediately investing audiences in the outcome to devastating effect. “I think it’s a taboo on film,” Mundruczó says of the realistic labour and birth scenes. “Our challenge here was to spend 25 minutes – which is crazy long in a cinema – but to compress the real time. We rehearsed, but not too much, and then we did it. You have to prepare everything. And like stuntmen in an action scene, it’s happening. And you cannot control it.”
It’s apt that the sequence recalls the impact of Goodfellas’ famous long shot given Martin Scorsese exec produces, having been impressed after regular collaborator, composer Howard Shore (scoring here), sent him an early cut. “[Scorsese] said, ‘It’s a good movie. Do what you want.’ That’s generous,” Mundruczó chuckles. Scorsese wasn’t the only one to think Pieces Of A Woman was good – it was loved by festivals and Kirby won Venice’s best actress award for her searing performance.
“We are not doing it for prizes, we are doing it for the audience,” Mundruczó says. “It’s a deeply human movie, focusing on a very strong female character, like a real hero. But everybody can be touched through the movie, and that was important for us as well.” JC
ETA | 30 DECEMBER / PIECES OF A WOMAN IS IN CINEMAS THIS MONTH AND ON NETFLIX FROM 7 JANUARY.