*“caterpillar turns to butterfly.”
*
this approaches anorexia not as an aberration, but as something almost inevitable within girlhood. Eisha Marjara revisits her past with remarkable tenderness, framing her eating disorder less as self-destruction and more as a learned practice, one shaped by intimacy, discipline, and the quiet demands placed on girls’ bodies.
what begins as a childhood bond “let’s go on a diet together” slowly reveals itself as something far more insidious. The film makes clear that eating disorders are not born in isolation. They emerge in a culture where women are taught to treat their bodies as projects, to modify, restrict, refine, and erase parts of themselves in pursuit of worth. Dieting becomes a shared language, a way to belong, a way to feel good and good enough.
watching this as someone who has struggled with disordered eating, I was struck by how familiar it all felt. The belief that control equals virtue. That shrinking is a form of success. That suffering, if done quietly, might be rewarded. This is where i believe the film feels deeply feminist, it exposes how patriarchy operates not through overt cruelty, but through softness, through care, bonding, and the promise of self-improvement.
also, the auto-ethnographic structure of this feels devastating. Memory appears fragmented, lyrical, unresolved, mirroring both illness and recovery. Marjara resists the clean arc of redemption, offering instead understanding. Healing here is not about mastery over the body, but about re-visiting the girl who believed her body needed fixing in the first place.
*“caterpillar turns to butterfly.”
*
this approaches anorexia not as an aberration, but as something almost inevitable within girlhood. Eisha Marjara revisits her past with remarkable tenderness, framing her eating disorder less as self-destruction and more as a learned practice, one shaped by intimacy, discipline, and the quiet demands placed on girls’ bodies.
what begins as a childhood bond “let’s go on a diet together” slowly reveals itself as something far more insidious. The film makes clear that eating disorders are not born in isolation. They emerge in a culture where women are taught to treat their bodies as projects, to modify, restrict, refine, and erase parts of themselves in pursuit of worth. Dieting becomes a shared language, a way to belong, a way to feel good and good enough.
watching this as someone who has struggled with disordered eating, I was struck by how familiar it all felt. The belief that control equals virtue. That shrinking is a form of success. That suffering, if done quietly, might be rewarded. This is where i believe the film feels deeply feminist, it exposes how patriarchy operates not through overt cruelty, but through softness, through care, bonding, and the promise of self-improvement.
also, the auto-ethnographic structure of this feels devastating. Memory appears fragmented, lyrical, unresolved, mirroring both illness and recovery. Marjara resists the clean arc of redemption, offering instead understanding. Healing here is not about mastery over the body, but about re-visiting the girl who believed her body needed fixing in the first place.
