Zen in the Ice Rift

Riley Couture

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GNDS125 – 008

Though Maia/Zen is referred to as a ‘tomboy’ in the movie, she would rather identify as male, so in this blog I will be using the ‘he’ pronoun when referring to Maia/Zen

‘Zen in the Ice Rift’ follows a character named Maia Zenassi, an Italian high school hockey player with the talent to make the national team. While Maia was assigned female at birth, she would rather identify as a male, and be named Zen. Throughout the movie Maia struggles with getting along with others and dealing with the discrimination due to his trans-lesbian nature. Instances such as fights on the ice and shooting other people with BB guns are examples in which she lets out her anger.

The movie begins with our main character giving a middle finger to sky sky, signifying he’s sick of this world, and sick of all the bullying he gets for being different, he later pays for this by getting his neck locked to a fence by a bike lock. We later learn from his hockey coach that he had been invited to train with the women’s national hockey team, under one condition, that he no longer causes ‘trouble’ with the other players on his local team. To keep things from escalating with his teammates he strikes a deal with one of their girlfriends, Vanessa, by allowing her and her boyfriend to stay up at Maia’s lodge for a night, in exchange for no more harassment from the boys. The deal goes down and Vanessa takes her boyfriend to the lodge for a night, and in a very uncomfortable and awkward sex scene, Vanessa clearly was unhappy and uncomfortable with what was her first-time having sex. She ends up running away from home and stayed at the lodge with Maia for a few days afterwards, throwing away her phone and completely falling off the map, only Maia being aware of her whereabouts. The two spend days together and a relationship begins to blossom between the two of them. Vanessa finally makes her move on Maia on a chairlift ride, but Maia denies her, and Vanessa in a rage returns home to tell everybody that Maia had her locked up in her lodge against her will. This in result ends with the national team rescinding their offer, and Maia is back to square one, only this time aware of the lie that Vanessa is living herself.

One thing that I would like to mention about Zen in the Ice Rift is that the movie stayed true to itself, the entire plot seemed to hover around Maia’s struggle with her identity, and it would have been unrealistic and almost unsatisfying if the movie ended happily. The biggest issue I had with the film was that I just didn’t truly seem to escape into the movie’s plot like I do with other movies. My main issue with the movie was the filming style, in other words, the movie had several scenes which seemed to be awkwardly long, silent, and almost useless. While I understand that the filmmakers were trying to add an awkward and uncomfortable tone, just like Maia’s everyday life, it seemed that some scenes were just simply overdone in that sense.  

Intersectionality, a term brought up in class and studied in depth in tutorials is also very present in this film. Intersectionality by definition, is “a way to capture the multiple dimensions of discrimination” (Kaufman). The term, originally coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, typically alludes to the burdens that black women face, but can also be used to describe the experiences of many more people. In the film, Maia experiences belittling through both lesbian and transgender discrimination. Comments such as ‘half-woman’ and ‘shitty lesbian’ are thrown at her daily from her hockey teammates, alongside the fact that he cannot be in the locker room with the rest of the boys while changing because he is ‘technically a girl’. These examples show that Maia doesn’t simply deal with homophobia and cissexism, but combined consequences of both factors (Kaufman).

When asked about her film, Margherita Ferri, the director of Zen in the Ice Rift, explains that her movie;

“intercepts the fragile boundary between wanting to belong and unconditionally being oneself, focusing on the discomfort and challenges faced by those who don’t conform to gender roles and the heteronormativity imposed by our society” (De Marco)

Heteronormativity is the belief that heterosexuality is the is the normal or default sexual orientation. We can see that this is essentially the mindset of every single person in the small Italian town that Zen in the Ice Rift takes place in. This extends as far as Maia’s own mother, who is aware of Maia’s sexual orientation, and while weakly attempts to be supportive of her child, is ultimately ashamed of him. Heteronormativity also acts as a comforter for those who are sexually ambiguous or uncertain. People feel comfortable in spaces that have already taken their shape (Ahmed). No matter the person, being outside the norm and being subject to change is always discomforting. Societal norms nowadays just float under the radar, almost like they are subconscious, they have a way of disappearing from view and nobody would care (Ahmed). And what scares people so much about coming out as something that isn’t the norm is the negative spotlight that comes with it. Maia is openly trans and lesbian in the film, and the negativity she gets from it, while of course is undeserved, is due to the heteronormative mindsets that her town is full of.

While Zen in the Ice Rift wasn’t my cup of tea in terms of cinematography, I admire all of the issues and ideas that the movie touched upon, because taboo subjects such as these need to be shown more often so that more people are informed and discrimination against minorities and members of the LGBTQ+ community can finally come to an end.

References

Kaufman, Peter. “Intersectionality for Beginners.” Everyday Sociology Blog, 23 April 2018, Retrieved from: https://www.everydaysociologyblog.com/2018/04/intersectionality-for-beginners.html#more

Ahmed, Sara. “Living a Feminist Life: Being in Question.” Duke University Press Books, January 2017, Retrieved from: https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/1933/chapter/191590/Being-in-Question

De Marco, Camillo. “Review: Zen in the Ice Rift.” Cineuropa, 9 January 2018, Retrieved from: https://cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/359420/