A Film a Week - The Wrath of God / Božji gnjev

 previously published on Cineuropa

Kristijan Milić returns to the Pula Film Festival with one more genre piece, based on a novel by Josip Mlakić centred around the 1990s wars in the former Yugoslavia. The filmmaker once again blends different genres into a smooth and consistent amalgam with The Wrath of God, which has just premiered in the Croatian competition of the national festival. As a genre piece with universal appeal, one could expect specialised festivals to book the film in the future, but it could also fare reasonably well in the regional theatrical distribution landscape.

Central Bosnia, the winter of 1993. Ilija (Ivo Krešić, glimpsed in Milić’s previous feature, Dead Fish), formerly a maths teacher, is now a miner in the Croatian forces fighting against the Bosnian ones. His war routine is broken when he hears the news that his brother Goran was killed in action in a village several kilometres behind enemy lines, without his death having any strategic significance for the struggle. Furthermore, there is no official record of the action, and Goran and his comrades received a cash payment in US dollars for their involvement.

With the help of his contact in the intelligence department Zoran (Marko Cindrić, in his third collaboration with Milić), Ilija sets off on a mission to uncover who sent his brother and his comrades to death and what for. The conspiracy he discovers leads all the way to Zagreb and the shady deals between both sides of the conflict, with military and political officials involved. Ilija's investigation threatens to turn into revenge…

The war, or at least its echoes, serve as a primary topic in Milić's films, but the filmmaker's approach is always different in terms of genre. His debut The Living and the Dead (2007) blended WWII and the 1990s war in a mix of war movie, mystery, fantasy and supernatural horror. The subsequent Number 55 (2014) told the true story of the Croatian War for Independence as a pure high-octane war-action movie, while Dead Fish (2017) was an Altman-esque account of post-war human destinies in a divided city. This time, the foundation of the war movie is converted into a thriller with its sub-genres, such as the crime procedural, the film noir and the 1970s-style paranoid conspiracy thriller.

As a director, Milić makes all the calculated, smart moves to keep the plot going and intriguing for the viewers throughout the 110 minutes of its runtime. The pacing is usually moderate, which gives the sense that the plot breathes, while the shifts in genres are underlined by shifts of styles. For instance, the colour palette of Mirko Pivčević’s cinematography moves from the greys and browns of the war landscape to more bluish tones more suitable for an urban noir, and the music by Andrija Milić turns from old school orchestration with some acoustic guitar highlights, to something more jazzy and progressive as the plot moves to a different genre.

The same level of meticulousness can be observed in Milić’s choice of actors from the ranks of those he knows and has previously directed. Ivo Krešić as a leading man in a genre piece might have seemed a risky idea before, but the actor seizes the opportunity to prove himself capable of such an endeavour. He gets a lot of help from Marko Cindrić who plays Zoran in a very grounded fashion, Slaven Knezović (also the producer of the film) who plays Ilija's benevolent commander, while for Domagoj Mrkonjić in the role of Ilija's closest buddy could be a career-starting performance.

In the end, The Wrath of God is a slightly retro but never outdated, fulfilling genre movie experience. This kind of rock-solid but never flashy genre piece has become more and more of an oddity today.

A Film a Week - Dead Fish / Mrtve ribe

originally published on Cineuropa:

The trickiest thing with wars is not the shooting and the immediate death lurking around every corner. No, every war leaves its consequences on people who are left in the limbo of PTSD and frustration while trying to get back to a life they could call “normal”. Some make it, some do not. Some take alcohol as a comfort, some do not. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it does not. Some find will to live, some just give up at one point and commit suicide. The latest Kristijan Milić’s film Dead Fish, world-premiering on Pula Film Festival is one of the studies of scars the war in Yugoslavia left on people and long-term consequences for the cities and countries.

The story, based on a short-story collection by Josip Mlakić who adapted it to a screenplay himself, is constructed in Altman’s Short Cuts fashion and follows a group of war veterans and younger people on the both sides of the city dealing both with the visible consequences of war and havoc and the long-term ones hidden under the surface, simultaneously catching the spirit of the place and dealing with the universal issues. Some of those stories and their characters are better developed, for instance in the first half of the film a suicidal man nicknamed Professor played by Dragan Despot is basically the protagonist whose death becomes the link between all the pieces of mosaic, while some other stories are just little vignettes with somewhat under-developed characters.

On the other hand, Kristijan Milić is doing his best to keep the whole film compact in audience-friendly format, a notch over two hours, which can prove to be hard for that kind of “hyperlink” stories. After two genre flicks, The Living and the Dead (2007) and Number 55 (2014), it is his first attempt to do something in a more deliberate pace, which he does with a good sense of rhythm, adding occasional bursts of action into a toned-down film. Visual references to Jarmusch and Hitchcock are evident, but work as subtle homages, and Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men and Bergman’s The Seventh Seal are quoted in the film’s text often to an awkwardly humorous effect, which makes Dead Fish easily watchable, yet profound film experience and a meditative addition to the filmmaker’s war-themed opus.

The film was shot in Mostar, a divided city in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the name is rarely spoken. The locations are unique and recognizable for domestic crowd and foreign tourists as well, but the story of a divided town can be applied to many places like that all over Bosnia and former Yugoslavia. Soft black and white cinematography by Mirko Pivčević dictates the dark and gloomy mood and is underlined by Andrija Milić’s somewhat jazzy score.

Dead Fish was produced by Eurofilm from Zagreb and Oktavijan from Mostar with additional funds of Croatian Audio-Visual Centre (HAVC) and Cultural Fund of Sarajevo Catnon.

Broj 55 / Number 55

2014.

režija: Kristijan Milić

scenario: Ivan Pavličić

uloge: Goran Bogdan, Alan Katić, Marko Cindrić, Dražen Mikulić

Broj 55 je hrvatski ratni film. Pravi hrvatski, pravi ratni film. Ne, to nije ono što očekujete, “partizanski” crno-belo obojeni film za zamenjenom ideologijom, nego ratni, žanrovski, akcioni film koji prati grupu od 20-ak hrvatskih vojnika koji u jednoj kući u selu Kusonje nadomak Pakraca pokušavaju da prežive okršaj sa brojčano nadmoćnim srpskim snagama.

Bilo je u hrvatskom ratnom filmu ideoloških skretanja (od zvanične verzije, to jest) i ranije, uzmio primere filmova Živi i mrtvi i Crnci, a naročito ih je bilo u filmovima koji se bave ratnim posledicama (Crvena prašina, Metastaze). U svim tim filmovima se aktivno preispitivala zvanična verzija događaja, postavljala su se pitanja ispravnosti i čovečnosti, pitanja profitera, pitanja stvarnih i lažnih veterana, pitanja šta raditi posle sa oštećenim ljudima koji možda ni pre rata nisu bili funkcionalni članovi društva. Pitanje je koliko su zbog svoje “arthouse” etikete ovakvi filmovi stigli do široke publike.

Skretanje filma Broj 55 je potpuno drugačijeg tipa. Milića i Pavličića ideologija ne zanima ni najmanje. Tu nema religije, nema politike, nema mržnje, samo surova borba za preživljavanje, što je valjda suština svih ljudi koji imaju nesreću da se nađu u ratu. Valjda je zato film dočekan na nož od strane određenih (sumnjivih) braniteljskih udruga koji mu zameraju nedovoljno hrvatstvo, katoličanstvo i tuđmanovštinu.

Grupa se uputila u naizgled napušteno selo za koje se sumnja da je jako uporište neprijateljskih snaga u izviđačku misiju u improvizovanom oklopnom transporteru. Cela akcija je bila slabo isplanirana, falilo je obaveštajnih podataka, vojničkog i komandirskog iskustva. Selo je možda ispražnjeno od stanovništva, ali daleko od toga da je pusto, i to će vojnici otkriti prekasno, povlačenje više neće biti moguće, a jedino makar privremeno rešenje je sklanjanje u kuću sa brojem 55. Istovremeno dok ta grupa brani položaj, druga, tek sklopljena grupa pokušava da se do nje probije i da je izvuče...

Film počinje sa hronološkim krajem događaja, kuća je razvaljena eksplozivom, neprijatelj ulazi unutra, odjekuju pucnji kojim se ubijaju ranjeni i preživeli. Ono što je posebno zanimljivo je to da ćemo do kraja filma skoro potpuno zaboraviti na njegov početak. Da, toliko je napet i toliko skreće pažnju na svoju radnju. Atmosferom i izvedbom podseća na hollywoodske akcione klasike, lako ćemo prepoznati uticaje Carpenterovog Assault on Percint 13 i Hillovog Southern Comfort, klaustrofobiju, teskobu, stalne napade nadmoćnog, ali uglavnom nevidljivog neprijatelja.

Što se izvedbe tiče, ona je takođe na visokom nivou. Boja je dokumentaristički isprana, kamera fluidna, nikako ukočena. Povremeno vidimo i jako kontrolisani “shaky-cam”, kao i nekoliko efektnih “slow motiona”. Na pucnjavi i efektima se nije štedelo, toliko da pucnjava postaje dodatak soundtracku (koji takođe postoji, ponekad paše, ponekad ne). Kaskaderski rad isto je za svaku pohvalu.

Gluma je takođe iznad proseka za hrvatski film, primetan je tek poneki ispad teatralnosti. Scenaristička i rediteljska odluka je da razvija grupe likova sa tek minimalnom distinkcijom među pojedincima (na osnovu izgleda, oružja, opreme, pozicije) i to kroz brze, pomalo tipske vojničke dijaloge. Na taj način se čuva dostojanstvo poginulih i nema utiska da je njihova privatnost izneta na film. Vrhunac drame je kada se dve grupe sretnu dovoljno blizu jedna drugoj, ali je akcija spasavanja nemoguća. Možda je jedina ozbiljna zamerka upravo na tom planu: propuštena je prilika za jaču emotivnu kulminaciju kada ekipa u kući odluči da ostane jer ne može ranjenike izvući sa sobom, a ne može ih ni pustiti na milost i nemilost neprijatelju.

Već sa svojim prvencem Sigurna kuća (izašlim kao deo omnibusa 24 sata) Milić je skrenuo pažnju na sebe kao autor veran žanru i akciji. Živi i mrtvi je već bilo skretanje u ratni i natprirodni “suspense” horor, nešto je sporijeg ritma, ali je svakako efektan i odlično promišljen film. I pored silnih nagrada, Milić je morao da čeka čak 7 godina na novi film. U međuvremenu se bavio televizijskom režijom, od prilično neslavnog štanca sapunica i drugih konfekcijskih serija do prilično inovativne domaće verzije skandinavskih kriminalističkih serija Počivali u miru. Bila je priča da su prava za seriju prodata Amerikancima da naprave “remake”, ali za sada ništa od toga. Televizija je imala svoje prste i u produkciji Broja 55, koji je isprva zamišljen kao jedna epizoda igrano-dokumentarne serije koja bi se bavila rekonstrukcijom ratnih okršaja. Materijala je bilo previše za 50-ominutnu epizodu serije, pa je to prošireno na film. Za sada se još ne govori o drugim epizodama ili filmovima, ali je zanimljiv podatak da je sa oko milion dolara Broj 55 među jeftinijim projektima u tom zamišljenom serijalu i u hrvatskom filmu generalno, iako se to ni po čemu ne može naslutiti.

Broj 55 je vrlo solidan film zasnovan na zdravim, žanrovskim temeljima. Miliću možemo poželeti što skorije projekte, a hrvatskom i regionalnom filmu više ovakvih, žanrovskih i neopterećenih ostvarenja. Gunđala sa raznih strana u ratu će mu zameriti jednostranost ili nedovoljnu ostrašćenost, ali za test probajte sledeći eksperiment: zamislite da se taj sukob odigrao negde drugde, negde daleko u nekom drugom lokalnom ratu o kojem smo možda čuli neku kratku vest. Onda recite kakav je film.