What does it really mean to «play God,» with all of its many connotations?
So asks Elina Psykou in her debut documentary feature, a profoundly observant survey of bodily autonomy and biopolitical control in today’s Europe. Stray Bodies interrogates the interconnectedness of a trio of biomedical procedures: abortion, in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), and assisted suicide. The filmmaker provokes broader questions around definitions of autonomy and (human) rights, aspects claimed to be fundamental to a modern European identity.
Stray Bodies recently premiered at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival — where it received a special mention — and made its way to CPH:DOX, where it competed for the F:ACT Award. While the plethora of stories is sometimes difficult to follow, it’s no small feat to tackle these topics together, even in 109 minutes; Stray Bodies could easily be a five-hour exploration and still barely scratch the surface. Instead, with her essayistic approach and experimental touches, Psykou connects the dots rather than diving deep, a sharp and necessary perspective on topics inundated by harsh contestations.
A biopolitical regime
The film’s English title brilliantly captures the multiplicity of the human body when made political: stray, indicating wandering or roaming, or otherwise undesired, random, aimless. Psykou’s cinematic linkages are an apt examination of what Michel Foucault popularised as biopolitics, where (bio)power is derived from the management and discipline of bodies. He proposed that the modern Westphalian regime of liberal sovereignty aims to «make live and let die» in order to harness populations.
Psykou predominantly examines cases within Malta, Italy, Greece, and Switzerland, where biopower is exerted in different ways. In Malta, abortion was illegal without exception until 2023, where it is now legal if the mother’s life is threatened. In Italy, single women and same-sex couples are banned from fertility treatments and artificial insemination, but abortion within the first 90 days has been legal since 1978. In Greece, both abortion and medically assisted reproduction are legal. Assisted suicide has been legal in Switzerland since 1942 — and it is also legal in certain cases in the Netherlands, Belgium, and now Spain and Italy.
In Europe, does a right to live also mean a right to die? A right to have a child? Who qualifies for each, and who gets to decide?
Psykou connects the dots rather than diving deep, a sharp and necessary perspective on topics inundated by harsh contestations
Women in transit
While bodily autonomy is not strictly a women’s issue, women’s bodies (and all bodies with reproductive abilities) are more actively policed. Stray Bodies almost exclusively features women forced to be mobile to exert any biopolitical agency. Mobility within the Schengen Zone makes it possible for the women to take control of their bodily autonomy, even while their own countries prevent it.
After she gets pregnant from a one-night stand, young Maltese student Robin takes a ferry to Sicily to get an abortion, while Caterina, a single woman who wants a biological child, flies to Greece to undergo IVF. Several other subjects are also afforded brief snapshots. Kiki, a Greek woman with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) who has lost the ability to speak verbally, wishes to die «with dignity» by assisted suicide but cannot do so legally in Greece. Gaia, an Italian woman, has actively practiced «procreative tourism» since 2018. Madame Duvivier, a quadriplegic elderly French woman, ends her life in Switzerland through assisted suicide.
The film also includes interjections from three individuals who oppose abortion: a socially conservative male Italian politician, a Swiss woman who aids in assisted suicide, and a deacon for the Church of Rome. Even if one disagrees with their staunch views, it is hard to ignore that they provide interesting perspectives on the biopolitics of bodies: that women are valued by how much they produce, that artificial insemination could offer a gateway to selective breeding, and that biomedicine intervenes with the intention of letting live at all costs, regardless of consent.
Immaculate conception(s)
From the start of the film, Psykou fills the film with shots of religious iconography, including statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Using clips from films, she also draws parallels between IVF and the Immaculate Conception, pointing to pervasive religious sentiment in the overwhelmingly Catholic countries of Italy and Malta. Curiously enough, even while religious fanaticism denounces abortion as interventionist, modern science and Western biomedicine derive from the Christian idea that God willed man to harness nature.
In the credits, Psykou acknowledges her unintended complicity in the cycle of nonconsent and intervention. She dedicates the film to her son, «to whom [she] gave birth without asking him,» and to her parents, who «gave birth to [her] without asking.» She daringly proposes that we humans, too, play God every day without ever realising it—and whether we like it or not.
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