A Film a Week - Shooting Blanks / Poslednji heroj

 previously published on Cineuropa

Many “blanks”, metaphorical or not, are shot in the newest feature by Žiga Virc (of Houston, We Have a Problem! fame). There is an ongoing re-enactment of a World War II battle near a small Slovenian town, so lots of blank ammunition and pyrotechnics are involved there. There is also a subplot involving a young couple unable to have children. And there are a lot of empty threats in the conflict between one stubborn local and some foreign investors. So Shooting Blanks serves as a very appropriate title for this comedy formerly known as The Last Hero, which has just premiered at Festival of Slovenian Film.

Our protagonist France (Primož Pirnat) is a middle-aged man-child who dreams of the glory of the Yugoslav Partisans and their heroic resistance against the German occupiers. He never had a chance to prove himself in battle, but he collects all kinds of memorabilia, proudly wears a uniform, drives around the town in an antique jeep, and either visits big battle re-enactments abroad or organises small ones on the edge of town. Now he has a new mission: to drive out the German supermarket chain that wants to build a store on a field where a battle occurred.

Things are not easy on the home front either, as France is stuck between his foul-mouthed father Janez (veteran Bine Matoh), who is the last living Partisan hero in town, and his daughter Vida (Eva Jesenovec) and her boyfriend Toni (Jurij Drevenšek). Indeed, the two generations are locked in a battle of world-views. Toni and Vida are trying (but so far failing) to conceive a baby, while grandpa’s patriarchal comments and crude jokes do not help at all, and France fails to stand up to his father, which drives a wedge between him and his daughter. The sudden arrival of the company representative, a Greek woman called Christina (the always great Angeliki Papoulia), will stir things up further.

The first act of the film, which serves as its exposition, is the most successful one, especially on the comedic level. The jokes sound effortless and are well timed, so they usually land smoothly, and the snappy rhythm in Vladimir Gojun’s editing also helps. The tempo inevitably drops in the middle section and the jokes start feeling a tad forced, as though they’re serving didactic purposes, while, as the film goes on, sex talk starts dominating the comedy. The final section veers towards a domestic drama fuelled by certain family secrets, which stands as something of a tonal contrast with the rest of the movie.

The main trouble with the script written by Virc and Iza Strehar is the way it treats its characters. They are all archetypes, which might work for comedy – and they are all played accordingly by the Slovenian members of the cast – but a certain interplay and chemistry are lacking. The only exception is the character of Christina and the acting approach of Angeliki Papoulia, who can routinely infuse her characters with heartfelt emotion.

Otherwise, Virc has a knack for both mass scenes and comedic twists, which he previously demonstrated in his brilliant short Trieste Is Ours! (2009). Shooting Blanks seems a bit like an attempt to expand it to a feature-length format. The end result is a bit uneven on the level of the dramaturgy and delivery, but it feels visually polished (thanks to Fabris Šulin’s inspired camerawork), sure-handedly directed, and compact and densely packed enough to be generally entertaining while trying to deal with some serious aspects of life.

A Film a Week - The Summer of '91 / Poletje '91

 previously published on Cineuropa

Slovenia was the first of the Yugoslav republics to secede from the federation and become independent after a ten-day war that happened in the early days of summer 1991. Although there is wide consensus in Slovenian society about the war and subsequent independence as a necessary move, the political parties and their voters are divided regarding the interpretation of the events. For the right wing, the war is key and is a starting point for the new mythology, while the left wing has more of a down-to-earth approach to the topic.

Slovenian cinema and the Festival of Slovenian Film (FSF) are not immune to this ideologically loaded question either, especially when there is a “round-number” anniversary. After last year’s call for artists to thematise the events from 30 years ago, this year’s edition of the FSF is hosting a new competitive section called Films 30, with five documentaries on the national topic. The Summer of ‘91, directed by Žiga Virc (Houston, We Have a Problem!), is one of those five films.

Known for his provocative approach to sensitive topics, based on unexpected revelations, both in his shorts (like the 2009 gem Trieste Is Ours!) and in his feature-length works (Houston… is a perfect example of a thought-provoking mockumentary), Virc opts for something completely different here – a relative lack of his own commentary and the assumption of an ideologically neutral stance on an ideologically charged topic. The Summer of ‘91 is actually a collage of collected home videos filmed by different people from all over the country in the time span from December 1990 and the plebiscite in which the inhabitants of Slovenia voted for secession, to the summer of 1992 and the first anniversary of the war.

The central piece of the film might be the events of the war seen through the lenses of the participants and the observers, but Virc also suggests that regular life that makes “small histories” was also happening during that period, albeit overshadowed by the “big history”. For instance, some people had their wedding scheduled for the very date of the beginning of the war, and some children happened to have their birthdays exactly during the peak of the military operations. Virc also opts to open and close the film with the same music ensemble performing Isley Jasper Isley’s “Caravan of Love” for the opening credits and The Shirelles’ “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” for the ending sequence, closing the symbolic circle, showing life going on, for better or for worse.

However, the lack of narration and direct commentary on the footage does not mean that Virc doesn’t comment somehow on the events; he shows his political viewpoint just by the art of selecting the material for the collage, leaving the people in the footage to do the actual talking. Although the raw material has definitely been processed – different passages of it in a different manner even, so we can see the difference if the source material came from a humble VHS or more fancy Beta – there is no reason to doubt the authenticity of the whole thing. Technically, The Summer of ‘91 is a compelling work, with Matej Nahtgal’s sound design and image post-production being the highlights craft-wise, while editor Špela Murenc keeps the whole thing pacey and compact enough, clocking in at a pleasant 72 minutes in the end.