Berlinale 2019: ‘The Awakening of the Ants’ is a Fine Study of Personal Change

Isa’s hair is very long. She braids it to stop tangling, and washes it outside with a large bucket of water. Despite her best efforts, however, her hair still finds its way into the unlikeliest of places, such as her sewing machine and her familial bed.

Her approach to hair is somewhat like her approach to life: constantly organising, cutting, and shaping things to her desire. Balancing looking after two kids with her job as a seamstress, Isa has to do a million things at once, while couching her wishes within a framework that is respectable for a woman in Costa Rican society. Suffering from exhaustion, Isa faces a crisis when her husband expresses a desire for another child.

He is not a stereotypically toxic man. He is not a brute, neither is he a layabout. He is a product of a patriarchal environment, simply expecting his wife to provide for him. The point the film makes is that any man can be like this if he doesn’t listen to his wife’s needs. Shaping herself to his comfort in the economic, gastronomic, and the reproductive departments is too much for Isa, who finds a novel way to undercut her husband’s best efforts to conceive.

The Awakening of the Ants is a fine study of personal struggle that doubles up as a critique of a society that expects women to have as many children as God can allow. One early scene tells us the way the film is going: after Alcida’s family constantly pressure Isa to have another baby, she imagines herself destroying the family cake, aptly decorated with the shape of a cross. It’s undeniably heavy-handed, but nonetheless effective.

This is one of many metaphors used to illuminate both personal and political change. Hair is one of them, as are the different fabrics Isa weaves together to create beautiful dresses. The ants of the title, which creep into Isa’s house against her wish, seem to suggest the incremental movement of progress while hinting at the broader struggle all women must contend against. Ants may not be powerful by themselves, but together they can achieve almost anything.

Much of the movie’s power resides in the quiet conversations between Isa and Alcida. Director Antonella Sudasassi has a great knack of framing these conflicts within the domestic space. Rarely is there a two-shot scene of the two bickering, but instead the director centres these arguments around broken lamps, money in the pot, and raising the children, all with the little ones constantly breaking into the scene. Like the Netflix show Tidying up With Marie Kondo, it reveals the extent some women go to in order to ensure a perfect household, while men are unable to acknowledge the physical and mental efforts expended. With a strong focus on objects and metaphor itself, the conflicts in Ants lead to very satisfying pay-offs later on.

The film’s success rests upon Valenciano’s performance. She does a great job of embodying this internal change, one that doesn’t even manifest at first in any obvious way. She is not a perfect domestic goddess — simply a woman trying to do her best for the man she loves. Coupled with the confident and calm direction of Sudassassi, The Awakening of the Ants is a strong portrait of womanhood undergoing fundamental change.

The 69th Berlin Film Festival runs February 7, 2019 – February 17, 2019. Visit the festival’s official website for more info.