The terrifying ordeal suffered by young Czech woman Martina Putova, who was doused with acid by her ex-boyfriend, causing third-degree burns to the upper half of her body and almost complete blindness, is told with moving bluntness in Jarmila Štuková’s powerful documentary, with Martina taking the powerful decision to speak directly to camera and expose both her body and emotions as she goes through challenging post-surgery journey.
Is There Any Place For Me, Please? follows Martina’s life story after this awful attack, coping with the loss of physical attractiveness and her fears for a world she cannot see. For her the challenge is to trust again as she searches for a new meaning to life, all the time movingly trying to rebuild her shattered existence.
To an extent, it is familiar fodder, but the remarkably direct way Martina speaks and explains what is happening sets this story aside. She strives to find a resilience to enable her to deal with the myriad new challenges, but she will always be haunted by what happened to her.
Strikingly shot, the film opens in tense fashion as Martina sits in near darkness and slowly puts on her protective mask and gloves before taking a deep breath. The film cuts to her walking with a cane along a pavement at night-time and climbing the steps to a house.
In matter-of-fact style she recounts the incident. “I had been thinking about what to wear that morning…I think I’d changed clothes twice,” she said. “I walked to the car, which was parked at the curb. I put my purse on the passenger seat. I got in the car. Then the door opened wide. It was only an instant and my face, my hands, my feet were covered. I started feeling really sick, my face was burning. I was in shock. It was unimaginable.” She could hardly see, got out of the car, ripped her clothes off and started screaming for help. “I remember being in an ambulance – [my] sight a blur and the pain was so much… I wanted to die.” She had swallowed and inhaled a lot of acid and initially wasn’t given much hope for survival. Martina was 25 when this all happened, with her ex-boyfriend planning the attack with car battery acid for some while after she had broken up with him. He was given a 23-year prison sentence.
The film veers between footage of her returning to the burn clinic and recovering from operations, material of her trying to get on with her life (learning to count steps, remember the shapes of rooms and – rather delightfully – bonding with an energetic young guide dog named Bianca) and monologues to camera which, given she can barely see what she is doing, pull no punches in terms of her injuries and the state of her life.
She trains to be a masseur, has a “horrible procedure” for her left eye and describes the importance of seeing her psychologist. He taught her to understand herself ”to be more sensitive and empathetic toward myself as well,” she says. “It is hard work, I never feel like going there. Sometimes it makes me really sad, I really cry a lot,” but adds, “I do need it because if I didn’t go then I wouldn’t leave the house. I’d hide in here, scared of everyone and everything.”
With a new apartment and the arrival of Bianca there is a sense of real change in her life. The fear of strangers can still be bad, but she meets Simona, who also suffered from burns, and together they set up a support group they call ‘Burns Fighters’ to motivate others and share experiences. She flies to Malta for English classes (“I wanted to connect with people abroad”) and eventually finds a boyfriend she can trust, despite still being tormented about herself. “I don’t feel good enough, pretty enough,” she says.
If anyone deserves a happy ending it is the remarkable Martina, with the film gently uplifting as it seems to suggest that she may find some very deserved happiness.
Czech Republic, 2023, 77mins
Dir: Jarmila Štuková
Production: Barletta
Producer: Maja Hamplová
Cinematography: Tomáš Kotas
Editor: Evženie Brabcová
Music: Katarína Kubošiová
With: Martina Izingová
