A Film a Week - Otter / Vidra

 previously published on Cineuropa

The kids are not okay. Or, in other words, we do not know whether they are or are not, because we live in two different worlds. The best we can do is to pass down our own “wisdom” and experiences to them, hoping they will mean something in their world, and to encourage them to have and pursue an agenda that might differ from our own.

A teenager pressured by the problems coming from both worlds stands at the centre of Srđan Vuletić’s newest film, Otter, the first shown in the main competition of this year’s Sarajevo Film Festival. Only a week later, Otter will move on to open the Herceg Novi Film Festival in Montenegro, and other festivals, either in the region or in the youth-films niche, could follow suit.

Our protagonist, Hana (newcomer Maša Drašler), usually does what she is told. She cannot express any interest in the pseudo-celebrity guy from her school, Balša (Savin Perišić), as her friends deem his podcast partner, the self-centred bodybuilder Luka (Pavle Marković), hotter. At home, she feels neglected by her mother, Olga (Nada Vukčević, glimpsed in How I Was Stolen by the Germans), who devotes her time to caring for Hana’s dying father.

Hana is completely out of luck, as her first intended date with Balša coincides with the day of her father’s death. After witnessing her mother submitting to the influence of the father’s brother (Serbian actor Marko Janketić), who thinks that the dying man’s last wish (to be buried in a space suit, as he was a pilot who dreamt of space flight) is silly and blasphemous, Hana sneaks away from the flat to meet with Balša and Luka, and to go with them on a trip to the lake to watch and film the solar eclipse.

The trip does not go as planned, and owing to the boys’ fragile egos, a circle of jealousy and insecurity between the three of them emerges. For the first time in her life, Hana has to make a decision and take action, even if it means defying figures of authority in a patriarchal and traditional environment such as Montenegro, where the film is set, and breaking the rules regarding the roles imposed on her as a woman and a young person by family and society.

At the beginning of the film, Vuletić shows his class as a director, since he manages to achieve a rare thing in today’s movies: the young characters are “allowed” to appear, sound and act like authentic teenagers. On top of that, he uses Filip Tot’s camerawork, Vladimir Gojun’s expectedly sure-handed editing, and the moody, ethereal electronic original music by Giorgio Giampà and Marta Cucchesini as pieces of a puzzle intended to leave a pretty strong impression.

However, halfway through, the characters’ actions, some of them drastic, start feeling abrupt, lacking proper motivation and appearing not so well timed. The source of the problem might be found in cutting some of the original script by Stefan Bošković (who made his name on TV both in Montenegro and in Serbia), or maybe in the young actors’ limited experience. Once the emotional stakes for them get higher, Vuletić somehow loses control, and the film becomes a bit chaotic.

On the other hand, that kind of chaos is significant both for the teenagers’ inner lives and for life itself, so, in the end, Otter, whose title comes from a scene depicting Hana’s ultimate cognition that she has to stand up for herself, can pass as more of an introspective movie. Ultimately, it motivates viewers to get introspective as well.

A Film a Week - Wondrous Is the Silence of My Master / Otapanje vladara

 previously published on Cineuropa

Montenegro is the smallest country in the Balkans, but throughout its history, it has always been an oddity of sorts. Its rough terrain consisting of high mountains and plateaus prevented it from being fully conquered by the Ottomans in the late middle ages, while its tribally organised society, fuelled by the myths of its folks’ bravery, served as a prerequisite for the country to be the first in the area to gain independence from its occupiers. After that, it was constituted as a theocracy ruled by a bishop. Back in the 19th century, one of those bishops, Petar II Petrović Njegoš, was also a writer and philosopher, and one who still enjoys the status of a cult and national treasure.

On the surface, the second feature by Ivan Salatić (You Have the Night, 2018) seems like a piece of historical fiction based on well-known and publicised details of the later life of Njegoš. However, the Montenegrin auteur had something entirely different in mind. Wondrous Is the Silence of My Master just premiered in the Tiger Competition at IFFR.

The actual protagonist of the film is revealed in a lengthy introductory text card, explaining how the scribbles of Đuko, the guardsman of the legendary bishop-poet, were accidentally found at the fish market in the coastal town of Kotor. But before we even meet him (played by Luka Petrone) in person, Salatić serves us with a prologue showing us what life in 19th century Montenegro was. We meet Đuko on duty, refusing to let a young hero, who cut and brought the head of a Turkish invader, disturb the peace of his master who is busy reading. Đuko describes him as “the ruler among the barbarians and the barbarian among the rulers”.

However, the poet-bishop nicknamed Morlak (played by Croatian poet Marko Pogačar) is sick and wants to find a cure, so he sets on a journey to the south of Italy where he believes he will recuperate. He is accompanied by his daughter (Vanja Matić), Đuko and another guardsman named Božo (Vladimir Milošević). When they settle in a seaside villa next to Naples, Morlak engages in thought exchanges with the local, vibrant intellectual elite, which turns out to be quite a reality check for both himself and Đuko, who tries to protect him to the point of obsession. The appearance of their countryman who lives there will then ramp up Đuko’s jealousy…

Like in Salatić’s previous works, there is a bit of philosophical distance to be felt between the filmmaker and what he tries to show. This time, it is further powered by a time gap between the historical times and our contemporary moment, proving that the filmmaker is less interested in the biographical and historical facts about Njegoš/Morlak, and more curious about his society’s obsession with the myth around him, while that same society is still oblivious about the underlying patriarchy and rigid hierarchy as it was almost 200 years ago.

However, the filmmaker’s distance is not a stance of arrogance, as it is bridged with considerable artistic quality in every single aspect of the film, as is the case with Ivan Marković’s chiaroscuro cinematography, Jelena Maksimović’s fittingly meditative editing and the score composed by Toni Cutrone/Mai Mai Mai which is both abstract and varied. In the end, Wondrous Is the Silence of My Master plays out not just as a masterful piece of filmmaking, but also as quite an immersive experience.

A Film a Week - Once Upon a Family / Porodica na određeno vrijeme

 previously published on Cineuropa

With his sophomore feature-length film, up-and-coming Montenegrin filmmaker Sead Šabotić challenges us to separate the terms of “faction” and truth, because the two do not have to be one and the same, although they occasionally are. Once Upon a Family has just premiered in the international competition of Beldocs, and given that it’s a very creative, poetic hybrid between documentary, fiction and film essay, it may seem like a nice addition to the more daring sections of the various festivals in the region and internationally.

The strange thing is that Once Upon a Family did not end up being as it was originally envisioned when it started life as Šabotić’s final master’s project at the Belgrade Faculty of Dramatic Arts. Due to administrative issues, the production moved completely to Montenegro, affording the filmmaker more freedom to play with different kinds of material and structure in order to tell a story of disappearance, loss of identity, and the search for others and oneself in the ever-shifting context of life.

As we are informed, the first protagonist, Gorčin Bojanić, the ward of an institution cryptically referred to as “the national depot of the rejected persons of Montenegro” (which the existing Komanski Most facility for people with intellectual disabilities actually stands in for) disappeared without a trace just before the filmmaker, first assuming the position of the narrator before appearing on screen, had been due to start filming him for his next project. Led by Gorčin’s friend Dragan, the filmmaker starts the search for him, guided by what shaky information he has about Gorčin’s past and background. Apparently, his family comes from the Piva region, specifically the town of Old Plužine, which was flooded after the construction of a dam and a hydroelectric plant in the 1970s, and as a baby, he was left by his parents at a home for abandoned children in the coastal town of Bijela. The duo embarks on a journey through the mountainous region in search of any traces of Gorčin and his family, learning about more tragic fates, and eventually about themselves, in the process.

Although hermetic and hard to decode, as were Šabotić’s short films (his previous feature-length documentary, the 2020 title Twins Woven from Dreams, which he co-directed with Lea Vahrušev, was a tad more conventional and accessible, but still quite poetic), Once Upon a Family is a work that grabs viewers and keeps them hooked. It tells true, heartfelt stories by carefully combining fragments of facts from rarely seen archival material, emotions and fiction, and even by opening a meta level at one point, channelling the literary works of 20th-century Yugoslav masters like Borislav Pekić, Danilo Kiš, Mirko Kovač, Filip David and the “keeper of their flame”, the recently deceased Goran Petrović, whose writing is quoted at one significantly meditative point in the movie.

The technical aspects of the feature serve its aesthetics perfectly well: while cinematographer Ivan Čojbašić treats us to vistas of the mountainous and coastal landscapes of Montenegro, and sound designers Antonio Andrić and Stevan Masnec discreetly complement the picture, editor Mina Petrović cuts the whole thing with a good sense of rhythm to end up at a perfectly fitting, meditative pace. In the end, Once Upon a Family is simply a mesmerising, magical-realist ride through the story of human destinies, thoughts, hopes and fears.

A Film a Week - Sirin

 previously published on Cineuropa

According to Eastern Slavic mythology, Sirin is a creature with the head of a beautiful woman and the body of a bird, usually an owl, that, like the Ancient Greek Siren, lures men to chase it until they lose touch with the Earth and die. It usually symbolises unattainable happiness. Sirin is also the title of Senad Šahmanović’s feature debut, which has premiered in Sarajevo’s Open Air section, and while the myth itself is read out later in the film, its central metaphor is the principal topic of it.

Šahmanović opens the picture with a flashback to 1993 and the event that still traumatises people in three countries of the former Yugoslavia. During the war, members of the paramilitary forces of the Republika Srpska boarded a train in the village of Štrpci, and abducted and executed 18 male passengers from it. Their only “crime” was having Bosniak names. The whole thing is observed from the perspective of a little girl who, thanks to her very existence, manages to save her father’s life.

Back in the present day, the same train stops at a similar location, and it seems that one of the passengers, Nathalie (Serbian-Danish actress Danica Ćurčić, recently seen in Murina), is visibly disturbed by it. She is travelling with her colleague and boss Valerie (May-Linda Kosumović, glimpsed in The Land Within) on a business trip. They work for a US law firm, and their job is to execute the last will of the late Sanja Đurđević, who stated that she wanted to build a chapel on her family’s land. However, her brother Andrija (Marko Baćović) is opposed to it, so the two have to navigate the complicated social landscape of the small town of Krivi Do.

Luckily, Nathalie is actually from that area and speaks the language, although she would prefer to be seen as just another American investor type. However, memories and relationships cannot be forgotten that easily (after all, she was born there under the name Sanela) and, seeing the rift between Sanja, Andrija and his wife (Jasna Đuričić, of Quo Vadis, Aida? fame, in another strong performance), she also has to navigate her own personal emotional landscape, which involves her sister Jasmina.

Sirin is a proper piece of actors’ cinema, and Ćurčić once again offers a master class of subdued acting that channels strong emotions which are hard to express out loud. Luckily for the other members of the ensemble (along with the aforementioned thesps, there’s also Nikša Butijer and Lidija Kordić as a father-daughter duo running the local hotel, Izudin Bajrović as a shady mayor and Momčilo Otašević as a young, ambitious contractor), she does so in such a way as to avoid dominating or eclipsing them, but still draws them into the interplay, so they seize the opportunity to breathe life into some meaty, lifelike episodes.

The craft components are on a high level, too. Šahmanović’s directing is measured and functional, while the cinematography by Aleksandar Janković, the editing by Tomislav Pavlic and the original score by Ivan Marković are put to good use to faithfully paint a picture of the protagonist’s state of mind.

The only thing that could be considered a flaw could be the fact that Šahmanović and his co-writer Claudia Bottino are using the real, traumatic event only as the lead character’s distant background, rather than pointing more of a finger at it. But, as a film of human emotions and a metaphor for the ever-futile quest for success and happiness, Sirin is a very strong piece of cinema.