Unclenching_the_Fists

<i>Unclenching the Fists</i>

Unclenching the Fists

2021 film


Unclenching the Fists (Russian: Разжимая кулаки, lit.'Razzhimaya kulaki') is a 2021 Ossetian-language Russian drama film directed by Kira Kovalenko.[3] In July 2021, the film won the Un Certain Regard award at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival.[4][5] It was selected as the Russian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 94th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.[6]

Quick Facts Unclenching the Fists, Directed by ...

Plot

Ada, stifled by her overbearing father and by her lack of prospects, dreams of escaping from her life in a small town of Mizur in North Ossetia, Russia.[2]

Cast

  • Milana Aguzarova as Ada
  • Alik Karayev as Father
  • Soslan Khugayev as Akim

Reception

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 86% based on 22 reviews, with an average rating of 7.9/10. The website's critical consensus states: "A daring feature debut for director/co-writer Kira Kovalenko, Unclenching the Fists, explores how family ties can stifle as much as they support".[7] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 68 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[8]

In their co-authored review for the Los Angeles Review of Books', Alexis Bliziotis and Sasha Karsavina analyse the film as a metaphor for Russia's current cultural climate of historical revisionism, in which ethnic and linguistic minorities get erased and forgotten.

Salon.com's Gary M. Kramer, praised the director's view calling it "[an] urgent, unsentimental approach [is] what makes Unclenching the Fists so potent".[9]

Diego Semerene of Slant Magazine wrote "Unclenching the Fists is a tale of how the desolation of a nation inhabits and engraves a woman's body".[10]

See also


References

  1. "Unclenching the Fists". TIFF. Retrieved 16 November 2022.
  2. Bell, Nicholas (5 January 2021). "Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2021: #58. Kira Kovalenko's Unclenching the Fists". Ion Cinema. Retrieved 16 November 2022.

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