Director and cowriter Elena Martin stars in “Creatura” (2023), her sophomore film. Set at the protagonist’s parents’ Catalan coastal summer home, the film depicts Mila at three different stages of her life: five years old (Mila Borras), fifteen years old (Claudia Malgelada), and in her thirties (Martin). As an adult, she and her boyfriend, Marcel (Oriol Pla), move from Barcelona during the off season when only locals populate the village. Because of stress, she breaks out in hives as she did when she was a child. The film parallels her discovery of sexual pleasure with her ensuing stress after others change how they treat her when she becomes a sexual being. Will Mila ever be able to overcome the dissonance between her physical desires and her body’s allergic reaction?
Telling a nonlinear story of one woman’s life through the lens of her sexuality is not as much fun as it may sound. Through every stage of her life, Mila is more interested in her physical pleasure in theory, but not practice. Her encounters with the opposite sex and others’ reactions make her feel as if something is wrong with her. For instance, as a five-year-old, she observes a woman who briefly visits while her parents and their friends are having a meal outdoors. This woman is showing a little cleavage, has a flirtatious affect and has (almost indiscernible) hairy armpits, but nothing about her stands out yet after she leaves, all the attendees, including her father, cannot stop remarking on this guest’s physical appearance and making negative inferences. It retroactively makes an earlier scene seem logical. Without naming her fellow teen friend, Aina (Abril Alvarez), teen Mila condemns another teenager’s exhibitionist behavior online to gauge how everyone would react if she behaved similarly. Later Mila experiments and takes it another step further despite the disapproval.
“Creatura” does not invoke Catholic guilt though it may have been implied and missed. Some of it is just a kneejerk revulsion to a child, especially a girl, becoming a sexual being. To be fair, if a five-year-old came up to you discussing her bouncing vulva and started humping friends and family, while correcting her, you may not react well and forget to instill body positivity, especially if you are an adult man who is not a perv. The normal reaction would be to get that kid as far away as possible. Adult Mila is still plagued with the memories of her inappropriateness, which includes some one-sided incestuous tones originating from her. As a teen, she explores her limits in person in more acceptable ways with her peers, but the reaction is still negative reinforcement. She discovers revulsion for the male body in her interaction with one lascivious teenage boy. When she asks a safer potential object of infection if he is interested, his response is like a slap in the face. She can’t win, and she reacts by to crying like an inconsolable child, a reflex that plagues her through adulthood.
Though the opening image, a child playing with herself, is shocking and sets the tone effectively, overall, Martin’s nonlinear narrative lacks rhythm. “Creatura” could have improved if Mila’s adult story functioned as a more structured frame for the flashbacks, and if the timing of the flashback intervals were more predictable. There is a moment during the early part of the film when a moviegoer may worry that they signed up for a movie about an adult woman, but Martin baited and switched her audience for a story about a teenage girl. All the pieces come together eventually, but some people may tap out before the end because it is such an uncomfortable viewing experience, which means Martin is an artist. Art and entertainment can coexist, but art usually provokes strong reactions, and this film will succeed in doing so. There is also the element of having an unreliable narrator whose undiagnosed neuroses are haunting her. The protagonist is unpacking this by herself, and the people whom she confides in are not medical or psychological professionals, but people who are too close to her situation to provide adequate support. When Martin finally receives reassurance, it is an unexpected plot twist which character will offer it. Sex is such an intimate and private part of life that it is a challenge for Mila to compare notes with others to find out how much of an outlier she is, and there is almost no one in her life who can provide her with that relief.
Please note while there is (female) nudity galore and sexual situations, there is not a lot of sex and no depictions of rape, which could be a concern going into a movie that is so fraught with tension, especially when it is about female sexuality. People go on about how avant-garde and out there some films are, but “Creatura” is the real deal. Even Lena Dunham or any New Yorker young woman aspiring filmmaker trying to be the next Dunham will say, “Damn, Martin, you really went there.” If you suffer from secondhand embarrassment, you probably should run away from this movie, and if you do get through it, then you should probably follow it with “Sica” (2023) for a complementary, contemporary palette cleanser though puppies, kittens and other baby animals may be better if you do not want to be reminded of the experience of watching this film and seek a complete brain reboot. If you cannot stand seeing rashes, you should probably skip this movie. Rashes are the price for the nudity.
A lot of people get called brave for doing something completely ordinary, but Martin and cowriter Clara Roquet, a Goya award winner (Spanish version of the Oscars) prior to her collaboration with Martin, deserve that description. It is such a vulnerable story that invites people to become armchair psychologists and theorize how much of “Creatura” is autobiographical, especially since Martin plays a role on both sides of the camera. She is not just getting physically naked but is exposing her heart to the world. Apparently the two conducted their own research by interviewing people about their memories of childhood sexuality. Sexual awakening may be the accurate description for the theme of the film but has a connotation more positive and functional than anything that Martin and Roquet put on screen. Apparently, Martin did work with a therapist to excavate and prepare for the writing process, but that aspect of her story remains solidly off screen and never referenced.
The casting is phenomenal. Martin seems biologically related to Malagelada and Carla Linares, who plays Mila’s mother at thirty-five years old. Borras looked more like a child Aina than Martin. While it makes sense to tie sexuality with male characters in a story about a heterosexual female assigned at birth, it was disappointing that Aina, who ends up being a lifelong friend, feels more like superficial window dressing than a substantial supporting character. She seems like a natural foil, and most of the protagonist’s conversations about her issues are restricted to discussions with men, not women, which seems counterintuitive for a film created after “Sex and the city” popularized women frankly discussing sex. To be fair, it may have left Spain untouched. Cristina Colom does resemble Alvarez.
If you decide to watch “Creatura,” proceed with caution. Even the most openminded, liberated person may walk away feeling as if they watched their version of a horror movie. While it is a unique film that breaks new ground, it could upset the apple cart if you are not approaching it with a healthy mindset. Innovation is never easy.
