SERBIA VS. CROATIA : 2008 IN FILM - Vladan Petkovic surveys the scene

Monday, 11 August 2008

Serbia and Croatia are well-known rivals in all areas of political and social life, from sport to war. In fact, this rivalry is probably what these two countries are most famous for. Here we'll take a look at the quality of their films released in 2008.
   It is generally the case that, while in these two most "developed" former Yugoslav countries (in the cinematic sense) the number of films produced varies from year to year, the level of quality remains roughly the same. For instance, last year Serbia produced 17 films, out of which one was very good (The Trap/Klopka) and one was good (Huddersfield/Hadersfild). Croatia produced eight, and one was quite good (Armin), while another was at least well crafted and impressive looking (The Living And The Dead/ Živi I Mrtvi).
   This year the situation is broadly similar. Serbia produced eight films (one good and one not bad), Croatia seven (one good and one partly satisfying). While Serbia had no national festival in 2008, having instead two unofficial competitive festivals (neither organized by the country's film-body Film Center Serbia) Croatia held its traditional national showcase at Pula.
   The best Serbian film of the year by any measure was The Fourth Man (Četvrti Čovek) by Dejan Zečević. Zečević is known as a capable genre filmmaker (slasher-horror TT Syndrome (TT Sindrom), campy comedy Little Night Music (Mala Noćna Muzika) and with his latest film he might finally break through outside the region.
   The Fourth Man is a political thriller in the vein of The Bourne Identity, with the main character, known only as Major (excellent Nikola Kojo from Pretty Village Pretty Flame), waking up from a coma with complete amnesia. Following his own path all the way to the end, Zečević makes a compelling and thrilling film which leaves spectator utterly satisfied. At the Sopot Film Festival (which served as a kind of replacement for a national festival) the film won best film, best director, best actor and the FIPRESCI prize.
   The best Croatian film of 2008 - although winning only Best Screenplay at Pula - is definitely Goran Rušinović's Buick Riviera. Rušinović is famous for the first independent Croatian film Mondo Bobo, a black-and-white thriller with a lot of disadvantages, but a real refreshment at the time (1997). Filmed and taking place in Fargo, North Dakota, and starring one of the best Croatian actors in the last decade - Leon Lučev - and the living legend of Yugoslav film, Slavko Štimac, it tells the story of a Bosnian Muslim and a Bosnian Serb meeting on a deserted highway and mentally sabotaging each other for the next 24 hours.
   Marvellously shot by Igor Martinović, the Croatian-born and LA-based cinematographer currently best known for his work on James Marsh's Man On Wire, the film is infused with real-life emotions. Credit for this can be divided between the screenplay by Rušinović and Miljenko Jergović (and based on the latter's novel), and fantastic performances from the two leads. With Bavaria International handling the world sales, a long life on festival circuit is ensured.
The second tier of films - those partly satisfying and well-crafted - includes Stefan Arsenijević's festival favourite Love And Other Crimes (Ljubav I Drugi Zločini) from Serbia and Zrinko Ogresta's Karlovy Vary competition entry Behind Glass (Iza Stakla) from Croatia. The former is a "transition" story set in New Belgrade, with bleak surroundings contrasting the romantic theme, and shows that the debutant feature-film director Arsenijević (famous for the short (A)torsion/(A)torzija which was an Academy Award nominee in 2004) has big potential but still has a lot to learn.
   Behind Glass is the fifth feature of Ogresta, one of the rare true craftsmen of Croatian film. Ogresta's sure handling of his own script is boosted by excellent performance from two leads, Leon Lučev and Jadranka Đokić. It's a story of very human suffering in a love triangle, although somewhat lacking in terms of profound emotional depth. Đokić deservingly won the best actress in Pula, while Lučev - with two outstanding performances in the two competition films - was left with a pitiful best supporting actor for Vinko Brešan's Will Not End There (Nije Kraj), a film which features some much more memorable supporting roles.
   This leads us to the biggest disappointment of the year, Arsen Anton Ostojić's second feature No One's Son. This story of a crippled Croatian soldier (Alen Liverić) whose father (Mustafa Nadarević) is a candidate for parliament is utterly annoying and almost unwatchable - largely due to the overblown, overused and pompous score by Mate Matešić (a hyperproductive Croatian playwright/composer.) Liverić is good in the main role, but his character - a sufferer from post-traumatic stress - is so unreal and loosely drafted that he's left with only a shell of a broken man to play.
   Even worse were the startlingly basic continuity errors during more than one key scene - errors which, for some reason, didn't catch the eye of the jury (comprising an actress, an actor, a novelist, a film-theorist and also an editor, who might have been expected to spot such flubs.) Ostojić's previous film, One Wonderful Night In Split, indicates that he's normally a very careful and precise director - so one can only ascribe the mistakes in No One's Son to uncharacteristic carelessness and sloppiness. The jury nevertheless awarded the film best film, best director, best actor for Liverić - and even best music for Matešić. Go figure.
   Biggest disappointment in Serbia is definitely Darko Bajić's On The Beautiful Blue Danube (Na Lepom Plavom Dunavu). Bajić is known for some average, but certainly not terrible films from the ninetiess, such as Black Bomber (Crni Bombarder) and The Starting Punch (Početni Udarac). But his latest outing is a waste of 18 mostly good actors, including Miki Manojlović, Branislav Lečić, and young actresses Ana Franić, Ana Maljević and Jelena Gavrilović. A sort of audience-torturing cabaret folie produced as large-scale film, the result is more suitable for late night cable TV than theatres.
   Two films from both territories go into the middle category of films that were more talked about than liked. From Croatia, we have Dalibor Matanić's Kino Lika, an existential drama set in a remote village where hard people live under hard conditions. Matanić is known for short formats such as TV commercials and music videos, but has seven features under his 33-year old belt.
   After wasting prolific actors such as Miki Manojlović, Sanja Vejnović and Vili Ratula in 2004's 100 Minutes Of Glory (100 Minuta Slave) by refusing to let emotions fly in a love story, he tries to compensate the mistake in a film which requires a completely different approach, with a "witty" and supposedly attractive tagline "Will you fuck me?"
   From Serbia, Nebojša Radosavljević's Who The Fuck Is Milos Brankovic (Miloš Branković) takes on more than it can handle. Tackling issues of drugs, prostitution, criminal, homosexuality, documentary filmmaking, tradition and faith all in one, Radosavljević makes an interesting but overloaded film. Its most notable feature is the cinematography by Miloš Kodemo - whose work was correctly described by one Serbian critic as a "black and white film which is not black and white".
   The bottom line is that Serbian film is stagnating, with only one exceptional film every year (The Trap in 2007 and The Fourth Man) and that Croatian film is slowly moving forward in overall quality of production. However, both industries have two things in common: the burden of post-war and transition subject matter, and the ability to break out of the region with at least one film a year.

Vladan Petković

Ratings for 2008 films from Serbia and Croatia
SERBIA:
The Fourth Man (Četvrti Čovek) (Dejan Zečević) 8/10
Love And Other Crimes (Ljubav I Drugi Zločini) (Stefan Arsenijević) 6/10
Who The Fuck Is Milos Brankovic (Miloš Branković) (Nebojša Radosavljević) 5/10
The Paper Prince (Princ Od Papira) (Marko Kostić) 4/10
Tears For Sale (Čarlston Za Ognjenku) (Uroš Stojanović) 4/10
Pale Moon (Bledi Mesec) (Ljubiša Samardžić) 3/10 (co-production with Croatia)
Bureau For Lost And Found (Biro Za Izgubljene Stvari) (Svetislav Prelić) 2/10
On The Beautiful Blue Danube (Na Lepom Plavom Dunavu) (Darko Bajić) 1/10
Average: 4.125/10

CROATIA:
Buick Riviera (Goran Rušinović) 8/10
Behind Glass (Iza Stakla) (Zrinko Ogresta) 7/10
Will Not End There (Nije Kraj) (Vinko Brešan) 5/10 (co-production with Serbia)
Kino Lika (Dalibor Matanić) 3/10
No One's Son (Ničiji Sin) (Arsen Anton Ostojić) 2/10
Remember Vukovar (Zapamtite Vukovar) (Fadil Hadžić) 2/10
Three Stories About Sleeplessness (Tri Priče O Nespavanju) (Tomislav Radić) 1/10
Average: 4/10

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