22/03/2024 - The latest documentary from Karoliina Gröndahl shows with violent determination how childbirth can still be a cruel and devastating experience

Finnish director Karoliina Gröndahl is used to shooting the bigger part of her films herself, and her latest is no exception. Presented in a world premiere at CPH:DOX in the NORDIC:DOX section, The Labour of Pain and Joy throws us with almost brutal force into the eye of the storm, in a hospital where a person is about to give birth. Childbirth is in fact at the centre of the film, an experience defined by the director as both overwhelming and terrible, a moment of great vulnerability which subjects the body to profound changes. It is precisely in this delicate moment that those who give birth may be the victims of abuse or rather of what is increasingly called “obstetric violence.” Gröndahl shows alternative ways of living childbirth through people who have decided to reclaim this experience for themselves. 

The experience of birth can forever define, from a physical and psychological point of view, a key moment in someone’s life which the people giving birth would like to manage in their own way, even if it often isn’t easy to do so. Two Finnish experts on the subject, midwife Kirsi and Anna-Riitta, a doula (a non-medical figure which provides support during the entire prenatal journey), work with passion and determination to improve practices related to childbirth by making the people involved aware of their rights. The Labour of Pain and Joy observes from up close those who have decided to embark on this overwhelming but also exhilarating adventure, showing the joy but also and most of all the difficulties it entails, on a personal, social and sanitary level. Disinformation around the violence and abuse that can occur during childbirth is central to the film, which encourages us to take back control of our own destiny despite social pressure. The decision to give birth at home in fact continues to be seen as radical, an act of revolt that some would rather was kept under control. 

The process is intense and the camera, confrontational and radical, does not shy away from anything, showing labour in all its raw reality. Significant in that sense are the scenes in which the doula takes care of the placenta which the parent giving birth wants to eat, or the closeups on tired faces during labour. The bodies of the people involved are filmed with a burning intensity, portraits without filters of an incredibly intimate and personal moment that usually remains in the private sphere. Although Gröndahl approaches this topic, rarely shown in cinema, with a more than welcome radicality, The Labour of Pain and Joy however sometimes risks falling into an essentialism that does not consider those who have chosen different paths to motherhood. The director declares that she wants to show childbirth from a point of view that is more inclusive, both in terms of gender and lifestyle choices, but this militant side does not transpire entirely. Motherhood is shown in the film as a pivotal event in the life of every individual, as a miracle that gives sense to existence — but what then of those who have chosen not to have children, or who cannot have them? Will their lives, from this point of view, remain incomplete? The director claims that she wants to show that not all people who give birth are women and that not all women can give birth, but unfortunately this inclusive perspective remains largely in the margins, mentioned rather than faced head on. The Labour of Pain and Joy is a film which provokes intense emotions, shakes us up and forces us to reflect on the control which society wants to have over our bodies, victims despite themselves of stereotypes which are difficult to break down.

The Labour of Pain and Joy was produced by Icebreaker Productions and is sold internationally by Canada’s Syndicado.

(Translated from Italian)