Hold Me Down is a 2018 short film about a 19-year-old single mother who works as a stripper at an illegal nightclub to support her child.
Brief slice of life films have always had appeal for me, the drop in drop out experience for the viewer one seeped in questions of before and after questions. With Niclas Gillis‘s latest short film Hold Me Down, that slice is deeply disturbing and genuinely moving, telling a distressing tale of humanity where all hope seems lost.
Chasity (Tianna Allen) is a struggling nineteen-year-old black woman living in the Bronx. She’s under the roof of her mother (Cheryl Juniaus), a harsh, angry woman who feels her daughter has done nothing with her life, is not contributing, and worse, not taking care of her own daughter, a child still in diapers. To make money, Chasity works as a stripper and dancer in an underground illegal club, along with Tanisha (Tanisha Lambright) belittled and selling themselves for small bills in hopes of offering some hope for her child. Chasity is popular there, yet manipulated by the owners and forced to perform for barely any money, at further cost to her very identity. But as the walls crush in, what choice does she have?
Based on and inspired by actual events witnessed by Swedish director Gillis while studying in America, Hold Me Down is a harrowing glimpse into a dark and often unseen world of horrors many women in these conditions face. Cast with actual women who live in the Bronx and have or are still pushed into these corners, Gillis’ hopes the film raises awareness and sends a clear message. Using Kickstarter to fund his efforts and offer a further look into the women in the story, this is a passion project that feels very much like a documentary even as is steers clear of that genre’s trappings. It’s a powerfully emotional watch.
Chasity is a strong women who had dreams of course, and in the film, she is seen at the center of pressures that would break most. She rarely speaks, her voice perhaps feeling weightless against the tide while her body bends under further burden. Instead, she is blasted by condemnation from her mother who clearly chides her daughter for failures on her own part. At the club, adorned in a platinum waist-length blonde wig, she is but a doll for the men to ogle and abuse, dropping single dollars at her as if she were worthless. It’s a truly troubling sequence.
Gillis compacts much into the 30-minute runtime, dropping us into Chasity’s heavily shadowed world, one orbiting around her daughter but steadily tilting off its axis. We sense that Chasity is a deeply caring mother but so limited by opportunity and choice, she is in fact, unaware of any light beyond this darkness, a rich visual metaphor Gillis deftly wields throughout. What he accomplishes most though is a feel for authenticity, one stripped of sheen and contrivance. This is an honest slice of life, one that far too many live every day.