I am fascinated by the movement on, and of, the screen, that movement which is something like the heaving and swelling of the sea…
— James Baldwin, “Congo Square”
Toni gets close, pressing her face against the window in the door. She watches intently, in awe. The dancers battle amongst each other, and the camera switches back to Toni’s body pressed against this door. The dancers now move in slow-mo, the sounds of the music and the room muffled. We focus on one dancer, and her expressive face as she moves. And now, back to Toni, with a look of desire, or longing, on her face. Her focus is broken by her brother, who asks: “You coming?”
The first time we see Marie, she, too, is watching. She watches from the stands, her interest increasing as the performance continues. She is enamored by the synchronicity, the splashes of the team. The music is loud, the splashes vigorous. Like Toni, Marie watches intently. We switch between the glory of the routine and Marie’s interested reactions. Her lips purse in concentration, her eyes squint and widen in fascination. Floriane ends the routine by gracefully waving, then disappearing into the water. Marie claps with the rest of the crowd, giving them a standing ovation. She stays standing and clapping until the last name, Floriane’s, is called. Floriane waves once again, and the team leaves the stand.
These two scenes are from Anna Rose Holmer’s The Fits (2015) about young girls navigating Black girlhood and performance with strange physical phenomena, and Céline Sciamma’s Water Lilies (2007) focused on the coming-of-age and exploration of sexuality of a few French teen girls, respectively. Both scenes profile and document a feeling of awe within these young girls. Their awe appears specifically in the context of them watching other girls, in which they are fully taken and occupied by the performances. Neither one can take their eyes off of the performances, of the bodies in motion. Neither routine is perfect; the swimmers are not in perfect sync, and the dancers are still amateurs, but these facts don’t seem to matter much to their enamored viewers. Both girls’ expressions also barely change, with Marie’s having the most variation; her eyes go a little wide, her mouth hints at a smile, all only for a second. That is, until the performance ends and she gives a standing ovation, during which that hint of a smile returns to and remains on her face. Toni’s expression is virtually the same throughout her entire sequence, broken only to look down at her hand and then to her brother. Much like James Baldwin in “Congo Square,” Toni and Marie are “fascinated by the movement… which is something like the heaving and swelling of the sea.” Baldwin here is viewing Harry Beaumont’s Dance, Fools, Dance (1931). While he is watching through a screen rather than without a barrier like Toni and Marie, he likens these movements to a push and pull, a heaving and swelling, that capture and hold his attention. Who is to say that the dance he is viewing here is so different from the swim team’s dance through the pool water, or the dance team’s dance battle? For the girls, the movement continuously captures their attention within a single performance or routine. Akin to Maggie Nelson in describing her feelings about the color blue, it is as if the girls fall under a spell.[i] Toni’s situation in particular harks back to bell hooks’s “The Oppositional Gaze.” Though she is young, she is a Black female spectator, and in looking she obtains a form of agency and control. Through where she places her gaze, she is communicating an ownership of her desires, which are coming to the surface in this first observational scene. During these scenes, both Toni and Marie develop a feeling of desire. Toni desires to be a part of the team, and so does Marie, even if it is an excuse to get closer to Floriane. While the specific type of desire is different for the two, the baseline of desire is similar.
Toni and Marie’s sense of awe and fascination in conjunction with desire illuminates a connection with direct sunlight in both of these scenes. Lighting is often carefully constructed to portray something specific or create a certain atmosphere, and this concept seems to reign true in both films. In The Fits, we can see through the door that a soft yet direct sunlight fills the room the girls are dancing in. As the camera switches to one of the team captains, we see this sunlight illuminating half of her body. The sun fills up the room and crevices of the girls’ bodies, like water fills up a pool. In Water Lilies, when Marie stands up at the end of the routine, she passes through a ray of sunlight. This light beam appears as a final barrier that Marie crosses before she makes up her mind to pursue joining the team herself. Sunlight in these scenes captures a dreamlike essence, and a transition into the feelings of desire for the girls. It is a subtle yet meaningful element, aiding in the overall tone of each scene.
I share the same feelings of awe encapsulated in Toni and Marie’s viewings when I watch these performances, as I see the light filling the crevices of their bodies and coloring their movements. The beautiful formations and shapes the human body can create capture my attention. When these girls are performing their respective crafts, in their elements, I am filled with appreciation, especially as a dancer myself. I suppose that this helps explain why the scene of the full dance team performing in the end sequence of The Fits was one of my favorite scenes. The girls are in their performance outfits, dancing together in a few different locations, including the normal practice room, the boxing rink, and an empty swimming pool. They’re giving the dance their full energy, and it is the closest we get to a full dance performance. While the sound may be somewhat disjointed, with nondiegetic music and the sound of Toni breathing, the visuals provide an idea of a full routine. Toni’s breaths are small, yet heavy, strained, offbeat. We hear some of the sounds of feet hitting the ground as the girls dance, yet their moves are also offbeat from the few instruments in the music. The individual girls seem small in the shot, within a large empty swimming pool, but this lack of individual focus emphasizes the girls’ performance as a unit. They all move slightly differently, yet are in sync with each other. Their movements and matching outfits create a visually appealing and satisfying scene. Now, imagine the pool has been filled with water. There are girls doing a dance of sorts, which is also akin to a struggle, within the water. Their legs thrash and twirl around with a strength and beauty, which is different from the graceful movements above the water—yet beautiful all the same. This is the view Marie has as she watches the swim team practice their synchronized routine. Such scenes act as a metaphor for girlhood, with a more graceful and tame outer image juxtaposed by inner turmoil. In The Fits, too, a culmination of the struggles of girlhood (and as performers) seen in their “fits.” These outbursts, which are different for every girl, share a similar thread of being spurred by dance stress or performance anxiety—whether just due to the upcoming dance performance or for the more general performance of girlhood. They often include jerky movements, while Toni’s is more dreamlike and includes floating. After this release, they feel more connected, more free to perform. Here, an inner turmoil manifests itself physically, after which the girls can more successfully curate their outer image.
For both bodies of work, movement is more than just movement. It is something to be fascinated by, something that serves a purpose, and something more than simply a pretty performance.
Author Biography
Anniyah Rawlins is a junior majoring in Film & Media Studies and Anthropology at Amherst College. She is exploring the possibilities of creative expression within film criticism through her work.
[i] Nelson, Maggie. Bluets. Wave Books, 2009.
