Fantasy (2025) 'Sarajevo' Movie Review: The Body Politic Gets a Pop Remix

This is the story of three girlfriends living in housing-estate buildings on the outskirts of Serbia, testing daily their limits within patriarchal domestic and urban spaces. Dressed in boyish grey hoodies and boxing gloves, each of them is on trial by every male character around them. As for the female relatives, little (if any) support or understanding is provided.

In such a concrete-weighted environment, the three seem to endure an ambitionless life, enraged, and with the comfort of each other’s company. Which, rendered through tough fists and looks of judgment, seems yet again a fragile bond. They keep stubbornly training in boxing, expressing, I presume, the violence silenced in their homes. This very opening sequence, lit gloriously by the backdrop of Ljubljana, as if constantly sunsetting, is a compelling articulation of embodied constraints (the female body in confinement) and perhaps the strongest point of the film. Remember “Love Lies Bleeding” (Rose Glass, 2024)? Our three characters here are Jackie (Katy M. O’Brien) in her onset.

Mihrije (Sarah Al Saleh), Sina (Mina Milovanović), and Jasna (Mia Skrbinac) first met in the short film “Sisters” (2020) by the same director, during what seems to be a case study in preparation for this feature film. The trio works well together, growing into the skin of their relationships, and separately, with Mia Skrbinac (the only professional actress) delivering a top-notch performance. Mia gives Jasna a complete, evolutionary transformation, one that is not only justified but credible as well.

Fantasy (2025) — A still from “Fantasy” (2025)

I would like to think that the politicisation of the body is the main target of “Fantasy,” besides the efforts at commentary around sexual liberation and the nod to the LGBTQ+ community. Stepping into the familiar aesthetics of glitter and not-so-successful punk pink, popularised by “Euphoria,” Kukla, in her debut feature film, seems more preoccupied with soft diplomacy and an overextension of inclusivity, leading to a lack of positioning. She is taken away by her musical scores, punctuating the flow at regular intervals, about every ten minutes. (How can a story be taken seriously when music is constantly asking us to gear our emotions toward celebration before the argument is established?) Are we in a late teenager’s dream? Or is this what the nightmare of a 23-year-old in this context looks like?

Disregarding for a second the confusing age framing of “Fantasy” (that perhaps is due to the immature nature prevailing in the suburbs of Southeast Europe), it is hard to believe that youth under sexual unease are still retreating into externally imported magical realism to find their freedom. The gang of three gets this wake-up call when they meet the extrovert Fantasy, or Filip, a trans person in their late twenties. Fantasy is ostensibly enjoying her life on a pink cloud, dividing her days between married men and clubs.

She adds this glittery touch to the hearts of the girls; some of them resist, and one of them gets mesmerised. Whatever follows from that point on takes the form of a nearly extended video clip or teaser, and I cannot help but wonder: Does the name Fantasy stem from the very imagination of the trio in search of a fitting identity? Or is it a reference to the desires of others? In any case, Fantasy reflects yet another instrumentalisation of the body—this time of a transgender body. How contradictory.

The sound design veers into overstatement, often overwhelming and pervasively invasive, and generally too much. This type of dramatisation does not go well next to visuals of a magical world, let alone next to the still-undiscovered-by-cinema complexities young females are facing. Naturally, I wouldn’t bother with such technicalities if the story had a strong core integrity instead of a cushioned tale likeness.

I am certain that “Fantasy” is a film to be enjoyed, even appreciated by many. As far as I’m concerned, this is yet another coming-of-age debut film from a female director who, despite the many directorial accomplishments celebrated in this picture, ultimately delivers little of substance. On the contrary, Kukla is reshuffling and reusing familiar tropes, as seen so often, missing, one could say, the opportunity of actually raising a female voice. Adding up the consideration of the resources at hand, Kukla definitely went easy in her capacities and steered her “Fantasy” into an anticlimactic comfort watch.