Smoke Sauna Sisterhood (2023), directed by Anna Hints, is an award winning Estonian documentary following a small group of women from the Võro community coming together in a traditional smoke sauna to open up with one another about their lives and experiences, sharing their deepest stories with one another. I will tell you right away that it is one of the most beautiful, emotionally rich things I’ve ever watched despite how little I know of Estonian culture.
The movie is shot in a very unique manner: the sauna is always dark, and the camera is intimately close to the women as they sweat, scrub, and speak in close proximity to each other. You hardly see the faces of whoever’s speaking throughout. More often you see the others listening and reacting. Body language is sometimes all you have to indicate who is talking with who, and yet even with faces cropped out, it never feels objectifying towards these women. Their bodies occasionally feel more abstract, especially in how they overlap in close quarters. Shots are long, with only a little bit of handheld movement, but never voyeuristic or creeping. You’re in the sauna with them, listening as they tell their stories. There are times where you can’t tell if a drop on someone’s face is sweat, water that’s been poured over them, or tears. It could well be a combination of any of them, considering the emotional intensity coinciding with the sauna’s heat and humidity.
Within this small, dark space, these women discuss their roles in society, the expectations placed upon their families, the men who desire them, their own body issues brought about by society and surgery. They discuss how difficult it is for their family members, particularly parents, to express any kind of emotion, to show that they care. In doing so, completely exposed to one another, embracing vulnerability, they are breaking this cycle.
One woman talks about how she realized she was a lesbian. Another speaks about how breast cancer has changed her. Another tells stories about her abusive mother. Two admit to having had an abortion. The cruel beating of one’s grandmother by her grandfather is discussed. Another openly details about how she was raped by more than one man, and how her mother didn’t believe her. It’s very heavy, sobering stuff, but there’s still this incredible feeling of a weight being lifted from these women’s shoulders in the time they spend together. It’s therapeutic, and the trust between them, both physical and emotional, is incredible and genuine.
And of course, it’s not all so heavy: there are plenty of smaller, lighter moments, and the women’s laughter is delightful to hear. Seeing them dance and sing together, drumming on their bellies for percussion, are some of my favorite moments.
These gatherings are a recurring ritual for these women, as we see the landscape outside of the sauna change with the seasons. Outside the small, wooden building, we see them step out into the snow together nude to quickly hop into a frozen lake, where one of them had earlier cracked open a spot in the ice. The plunge is a refreshing break from the heat indoors. We also see them chopping meat to smoke within the sauna, which they enjoy together later in the year. At one point the women dance together clothed while one plays an accordian. Later, when it’s warmer and everything is green, we see them lay outside in the grass, singing together nude in the sunshine.
We never see them outside of this location. We do not see them in their daily lives, we do not know what their jobs or hobbies are, nothing of that sort. We never see them dress or undress. When we see them clothed, it’s always in winter wear. Smoke constantly obscures things in shots, and there are strange, dreamlike moments here and there where we see the smoke superimposed over the image of an older woman who doesn’t appear anywhere else as far as I can tell. There’s also a shot of smoke receding from the trees outside, what I take to be a reverse shot, and something about it has stuck with me. It serves to drive home the cultural importance of the sauna: text at the end of the documentary expresses how this tradition is part of the UNESCO lists of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity. It’s a tradition that should be universal.
The intimate sisterhood on display here is something I personally find myself craving as I transition, but have been afraid of admitting that I desire. I see female friends doing group activities together, nothing like this of course, but going out together for spa days and things like that, and wish I could be invited. I don’t know if I’d be able to go, if I’d feel comfortable. I know I’m not a woman, even as I’ve doubled my estrogen to change my body further. I know I’m nonbinary, I know I will never experience anything in ways these women have. It feels wrong to even admit to wishing for this level of feminine connection. But I have to mention it all the same. Identity is often more complicated and stranger than you expect. If nothing else, I can be vulnerable myself as these women are in whatever ways I can.
Smoke Sauna Sisterhood is currently available to stream on MUBI, and can be rented digitally in several other places. Whatever you pay to watch it, it is worth every penny. Director Anna Hints also released a short film after this called Sauna Day. This one actually follows a group of men in a sauna together. While I haven’t been able to find it yet, I really would like to see how it compares to this incredible work. 🪐
In the UK you can watch the film on channel4.com or on the All4 streaming platform.