previously published on Cineuropa
Croatian filmmaker
Tomislav Žaja already has over 50
titles under his belt as a producer, director or writer, spanning
various different forms and formats: fiction (including adapting
stage plays for television), experimental and documentary, and short,
mid-length and feature-length works. However, he is probably best
known for his oeuvres in the field of observational documentary. His
newest title, Neighbors, premiered locally in Croatia at the
end of last year, while its festival premiere is taking place at
ZagrebDox, in the regional competition.
After a quote on freedom
by Franz Kafka and a couple of
shots that serve to orientate viewers and familiarise them with the
milieu of former mental patients, edited in parallel with a simple
opening-credits sequence set against drone shots of the Croatian city
of Osijek, another title card appears, explaining that, in accordance
with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities,
the mental institution in Osijek is being closed, and the patients
are about to be reintegrated into society, slowly taking back control
over their lives. In his previous 30-minute documentary Free,
Žaja tackled the same topic of reintegration, homing in on people
with learning disabilities who were relocated from a closed-off
institution to a more open assisted-living facility.
Neighbors
is not a sequel, though, nor is it simply a form of project
development from a short to a feature-length title. The stakes are
higher, and the group shown here is more heterogeneous. One thing
that they all have in common is that they have spent a substantial
amount of time in closed-off institutions like the one they are being
released from (some of them have been in this situation their entire
lives) and that they have to rebuild their lives. Whether they will
be able to do so is still anyone’s guess.
Fortunately, they are
able to get help according to their needs: some of them will stay in
a halfway-house kind of facility, others have inherited property,
while several of the former patients have seized the opportunity to
couple up. They all want to live "like normal people", but
this means something different to each of them: sometimes this
entails work, sometimes love or dreaming about having children,
sometimes emigration to Germany, sometimes getting back in touch with
their family, finding a cat that was lost or getting support from the
mayor's office for volunteering in the community. It is more of a
challenge for them, but they are always able to rely on their upbeat
and friendly therapist and their unusual doctor, prone to thinking
outside the box.
Žaja has a gentle touch
and clearly cares a great deal about his subjects, who willingly
participate in the film. Sometimes they talk directly to the camera,
but more often than not, they are filmed during their own
interactions with fellow patients or the outside world. His main goal
is to offer an insight into their world, and to achieve this, some
production values had to be sacrificed. The end result is a soulful,
informative and non-judgemental film that looks a bit plain, rather
than stylish, though the camerawork by Jasenko Rasol
has some nice touches, as do the sound design and the
minimalistic original score by Vjeran Šalamon. The
abundance of exterior and even situational wide shots also
contributes to the relaxed feeling and the sense of optimism about
the destiny of these people who have finally been given a chance for
the first time.
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