Still Center is a film every woman should watch. Director Carina Tautu has created a film of symbols interlaced with situations that help Erie (the main character) elaborate on a problem she is faced with: being pregnant with triplets.
The film is not a linear narrative and it is not meant to be. It is a collage of fertile imagery, tragicomic situations and questions.
The themes I found to be particularly powerful in the film are those of the Navel and Center. The navel being the literal and figurative 'center' of the human body and that which connects a mother and child. From navel to navel - life is passed on... We also get the sense that the world and/or 'civilization' seems to be spiraling out of control, away from its 'center'....
A supporting character mentions the world is off-center when there are so many situations in which human lives are eliminated unnaturally (through war, holocaust, genocide) and equally off-center when humans are forced to give life...is it 'centered' to bring life into an un-centered place?
The very first thing we see in this film is an Albert Einstein quote which states that the elaboration of a problem is sometimes more important than proposing its solution. After watching the film, I understand why. For in elaborating we become intimate with the problem. And its solution, should it be discovered, comes organically from within, from our center, from our navel.
Carina Tautu's Still Center allows us to do just that. It guides us through the process of elaborating on issues we might not often consider, but which deserve considerable reflection and introspection.
