A Film a Week - Guidance Through the Black Hole

originally published on Cineuropa

Life itself can be stranger than fiction and that is the reason why documentaries can be as interesting as fiction features, if they are done properly, that is. Sometimes it is a matter of topic; sometimes it’s all about the protagonist. A polished narrative and visual style don’t hurt either. Guidance Through the Black Hole [+], a film by Aleksandar Nikolić and Zlatko Pranjić world-premiering in Sarajevo Film Festival’s Documentary Competition, has it all: the protagonist, the plot twists and lots of style, heart and soul. Further festival exposure is expected, especially in the former Yugoslavian region.

The issue of “immigrant blues” might seem to be used and re-used in cinema, but in the case of the man nicknamed Sule, a Bosnian immigrant and one of the last true bohemians of London’s Portobello Road, it seems completely fresh. An interesting person, a poet, a painter, a serial procrastinator, a compulsive gambler and an alcoholic who is his own worst enemy. He never quite adjusted to life in London, the sole destroyer of his marriage, homeless for several years and with one single dream: to see his hometown of Banja Luka again. He will get his chance at redemption with an offer to exhibit his work in the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina in London. His only task is to finish the four remaining paintings from the titular cycle.

In a genuine, no-nonsense style, Sule narrates his life achievements, slip-ups and his attitude and opinions on the mistakes that he has made: friendship, fatherhood, religion, art and personal development. He is what he is, he honestly wants to make things better and he gets so close. But can he really change? As a highly individual character, Sule makes his story both distinctive and universal. Guidance Through the Black Hole is not just a film about migration, integration, the lack of it and nostalgia. Neither it is just an exploration of creative processes and making art. It is about life as a whole. 

First-timer Zlatko Pranjić and the more experienced Aleksandar Nikolić - known for his work as a cinematographer, editor, writer and director on another well-known documentary The Serbian Lawyer - felt comfortable with their protagonist and knew what to do with the material he provided them. Filmed almost completely in black and white, the film underlines the moodiness of its main character and contrasts it. One sequence in vivid colour near the end shows the sweetness of success on the horizon. The sound design, consisting mainly of background noises cut with sharp beats accenting the tense scenes, is also interesting and so is the soundtrack, which varies from Serbian alternative rockers Goribor to melancholic Bosnian folk music (“sevdah”) standards.

A Film a Week - Directions / Posoki

Some say the best way to get to know some country is travelling its roads. The same goes with cities and streets, preferably by walking, but driving or being driven also helps. And here we are on the territory of cabbies and their stories and anecdotes: Stephan Komandarev’s Directions examines Sofia and Bulgarian society in general through the series of kinda-sorta connected short stories from the taxi rides.

The first one starts as a family piece, a nervous, stressed small entrepreneur father drives his daughter to school, giving orders and instructions to his workers over the phone, then turns into socially aware farce when the girl goes out and high school-age prostitute gets in, just to end as a tragedy when that cabbie-entrepreneur is confronted with the banker who tries to squeeze him for bribe. “We make the laws for us, not for you”, the banker says and sets the mood of the film: a country completing the transition to capitalism, corruption, erosion of the values, gaping class divide, the whole nine yards. That story, the only one set and shot in daytime, will be just some news over the radio in the others, with citizens commenting and sympathizing with the taxi driver taking the justice in his own hands.

In the ones that follow, we will see a medley of short stories. A surgeon goes to work in his Sofia hospital for the last time before moving to Germany, opening the subject of leaving “the country of optimists (because all the pessimists and realists have already left)”. A melancholic young driver saves a philosophy teacher in debt from suicide. A lawyer gets in trouble for exposing his driver as a cheater. And so on, and so on.

“Cab stories” are not that new in cinema. Let us just remember Jarmusch’s modern classic Night on Earth and the stories happening around the same time in big cities from Los Angeles to Helsinki. It was a bit uneven, as all “short story collections” are, but it was well done, cool and soulful. The problem with Directions is not that it is uneven, it is, and its stories vary in length and mood, but the fact that Jarmusch’s Earth is reduced to one very particular city with its particular problems that are staple diet of East European cinema.

Komandarev’s film has its moments, there is some ingenuity and gentleness and definitely there is some heart and even humour. But how far can you go hitting all the same tones of corruption, capitalism, crime, class, especially in the form of short. With a more thorough selection of the material that would or would not get in the final version, better character development and focus on more personal, quieter moments and universal topics, Directions would be a better film. But the spotlight on the socio-political context makes it more of a statement.