The New York Times by Ben Kenigsberg
Although Ms. Rohrwacher captures Mark’s uncertain, shifting physicality, the movie doesn’t always succeed in getting inside the character’s head.
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Italy, Switzerland, Germany · 2015
1h 24m
Director Laura Bispuri
Starring Alba Rohrwacher, Emily Ferratello, Lars Eidinger, Flonja Kodheli
Genre Drama
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In order to escape the servile lifestyle imposed on women in the mountains of Albania, Hada decides to identity as a man and takes a vow of eternal virginity. Years later, Hada wishes to reclaim her womanhood in modern day Milan, but surviving so long in the wilderness makes readjusting a challenge.
The New York Times by Ben Kenigsberg
Although Ms. Rohrwacher captures Mark’s uncertain, shifting physicality, the movie doesn’t always succeed in getting inside the character’s head.
Slant Magazine by Clayton Dillard
Given its nearly episodic structure, formal choices, and similar thematic inquiries, Sworn Virgin suggests an unofficial remake of Vivre Sa Vie.
The Hollywood Reporter by Deborah Young
It feels like every script-reader in the Italian-Swiss-German-Albanian-Kosovo coproduction cut out a line of dialogue in each scene, leaving behind an irritating silence and an enigmatic puzzle for the audience to second-guess.
Cutting between present, childhood, and recent past, Bispuri constructs a subtle, richly emotional collage.
RogerEbert.com by Godfrey Cheshire
Sworn Virgin is not the first film to give the impression that, in current European art cinema, religion is the one subject that dare not speak its name.
[A] sensitive, deliberate debut feature.
Uplifting in a tiny, understated and very authentic way, Sworn Virgin shows us gently how its possible to be living in exile in the world you know best, and how it's possible to come home to a place you've never been before.
The real-life setup is a knockout, both ancient and timely, and even though Rohrwacher never quite passes — she looks too much like Barbra Streisand’s "Yentl" — the movie is on to a larger point, namely about the fluidity of sexual identity and our universal penchant for self-reinvention. The film builds slowly but deserves an audience eager to discuss it.
Screen International by Lee Marshall
The script puts artsy effect before character credibility.
A poignant study of gender politics enshrined within an anthropologically fascinating drama.
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