The idea for Stray Bodies, produced by Athens-based Jungle Films and Anemon Productions and sold by Cinephil, came to Greek director Elina Psykou 15 years ago. Back then, abortion was completely illegal in Malta (in 2023 an exception was made in the case of women whose lives were in grave danger), while in Greece cremation was outlawed.
“One at the beginning of life and the other at the end of life,” reflects Psykou. “These two things made me think about birth and death and what [they] mean in contemporary Europe.”
Inevitably, when you embark on a film that embraces such polar existential extremes, there are protagonists who are more than eager to express their political, ethical or religious opinions, whether about abortion, IVF or euthanasia. Nevertheless, Psykou manages to navigate a clear line between the conflicting polemics, instead focussing on the lengths to which women must go, and the monies they are forced to spend, in order to satisfy their profound physical and emotional needs.
In Stray Bodies, Maltese Robin is pregnant but doesn’t want to be a mother, but cannot arrange an abortion in her home country.
Meanwhile, Italian women Katerina and Gaia are single but each wants a child. IVF treatment is not available to single women in Italy, the film tells us, so they embark upon numerous excursions to Athens where such treatment is freely available. (Gaia makes the poignant and somewhat ironic observation that the Virgin Mary, whom Italian Catholics venerate, was herself a recipient of divine IVF when she experienced the Immaculate Conception.)
Greek Anastasia, a doctor whose mother died a protracted and painful death, visits a Swiss clinic to observe at first hand the process of assisted suicide that is not available in Greece. There she meets Kiki, an elderly woman who wishes to die with dignity.
In short, the procedures that all the film’s core characters hope to access – abortion, IVF and euthanasia – are available and legal in neighbouring countries, but not in their own. Which is why the trade in “medical tourism” is so profitable. So we follow each subject as they journey towards their hoped-for conclusion, with each giving a powerful monologue before the film’s end to underline their new-found state of contentment or understanding.
“I didn’t want to make, let’s say, an activist film. I am not a journalist, I’m a filmmaker,” says director Psykou (although she underlines in interview that capitalism is alive and kicking in the IVF industry in her home Athens). “The issues are not black or white. I really wanted to discover these grey areas. For me, from the first moment, it was very clear that I wanted to have conservative voices in the film…but at the same time to show what my opinion is – and I think that I managed to do it.” That said, the arguments of conservatism can be at times persuasive, which is “mind-fucking in a way,” Psykou concedes.
One such conservative voice is that of an elderly female doctor, seemingly progressive, who runs a euthanasia clinic in Switzerland, but who retains ambivalent views on the subject of abortion, bordering on the Catholic.
“For me, this is fantastic, because it is the same person, and she’s very confused,” says Psykou. “This interview, this part of the film, it is the film because it’s so powerful. It’s this woman that’s very, very dynamic and she does something very difficult and she believes in it very [much]. She travels all over the world to talk about euthanasia, to talk about assisting suicide. But at the same time, she has this [pro-life] opinion on abortion.”
One sequence towards the film’s end alerts us to the existence of cemeteries across Italy in which aborted foetuses are buried, at times with the consent of a grieving mother-to-be, at other times with no such consent given by the host mother. Whatever the motives of the people who perform these ceremonies, there is no denying the intensity of this sequence within the film. “I have to admit that when I was at this ceremony I was very moved,” Psykou comments.
That said, the film contains many playful moments, such as when the newly pregnant Robin performs an energetic (and very skilful) dance to the strains of Madonna’s ‘Papa Don’t Preach.’ Or when Gaia poses in full blue-tinted iconic regalia to invoke the Blessed Virgin.
“Surrealism is my world,” confirms Psykou. “And I would [recognise] this film to be part of my world as a filmmaker. I tried to feel the emotions of these people in ways that we’re not used to seeing in documentaries,” she ends.
